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THE CRIMES 



11 



HOUSE OF HAPSBURG 



ITS OWN LIEGE SUBJECTS. 



F. W. NEW MAN, 

FORMERLY FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD; ANJ) AUTHOR OF 
" A HISTORY OF THE HEBREW MONARCHY." 







LONDON: 

JOHN CHAPMAN, 142, STtiAND. 

M.0CCC.1.UI. 






LONDON : 
PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER, 

ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The following pages had been compiled to be published in a 
channel in which the writer's name would have been superfluous. 
I now think it proper to avow myself, not because there is here 
any original research, for there is none ; but to guarantee, in 
some degree, to the reader, that the statement of broad facts is 
faithful. Original research is excellent in calm times ; but after 
the recent horrors, it is but reasonable to trust more to the 
standard historians than to any new researches concerning 
ancient affairs. In respect to them, I have acted the part of a 
mere extractor and abridger from common books, chiefly from 
Archdeacon Coxe's House of Austria, Robertson's Charles V., 
and Grattan's History of the Netherlands. On the recent events 
I will only say, that I have taken pains to inform myself aright 
from various sources. The Hungarian facts are now quite 
beyond dispute, and the Austrian organs are wise enough to 
avoid the argument. 

FRANCIS W. NEWMAN. 



CONTENTS. 





PAGE 


I. — What is Political Crime ? 


. 1 


II. — Rise of the House of Austria 


. 3 


III. — Castile ...... 


. 5 


IV. — Valencia and Aragon . 


. 9 


V. — Bohemia .... 


. U 


VI. — Protestant Gtermany . 


. 20 


VII. — Hereditary States of Austria 


. 24 


VIII. — Netherlands .... 


. 25 


IX. — Belgium . 


. 32 


X. — Protestants and Moors of Spain 


. 33 


XI. — Austrian Poland 


. 35 


XII. — Hungary .... 


. 38 


XIII. — Croats and Serbs 


. 47 


XIV. — The Stadion Constitution 


. 48 


XV. — Austrian Italy .... 


. 49 


XVI.— Sicily ..... 


. 54 


XVII. — What is all this to England ? 


. ,55 



THE CRIMES 

OF THE 

HOUSE OF AUSTRIA 

AGAINST ITS OWN LIEGE SUBJECTS. 



I.— WHAT IS POLITICAL CEIME ? 

From causes which we cannot here stop to analyze, neither 
Religion nor Philosophy has succeeded in carrying private morality 
into public life. All great empires have been born in crime. 
Every dynasty, and every republic, lies open to so many grave 
imputations, that official men and soldiers are apt to look on 
princes and statesmen, like the gods of Paganism, as free from 
moral restraints. Since war has become a profession, a few of 
its atrocities have been lessened ; but if we except this, the 
morality of international statesmanship in general is no higher 
now than among the old Greeks and Komans. In such a state 
of things it may seem absurd to censure any one power in par- 
ticular. 

Nor do we for a moment imagine that in any class of political 
crime, the House of Austria is the sole offender. The House of 
Bourbon preceded it in personal wickednesses ; the House of 
Bonaparte seems anxious not to be behind it; the House of 
Stuart tried to imitate it, but failed ; the petty tyrants of Ger- 
many and Italy have been often as criminal. But the Hapsburg 
princes have been signal for the extraordinary number of similar 
offences, and the high development of the freedom which they 
crushed. Among them it is not one preternaturally wicked 
man who has done the foul deeds, and left a clear field to the 

B 



2 WHAT IS POLITICAL CRIME? 

dynasty : many treacherous emperors of the Austrian House have 
been personally amiable. We do not overlook the fact, that the 
guilt of kings is shared by their ministers ; though it is impossi- 
ble to exculpate a monarch from the acts of his servants, when 
those servants are not imposed on him by a parliament, but are 
maintained by him against the people and its organs. When 
a wicked policy is hereditary in a court, and sustains itself 
under better and worse princes alike, this is the greatest of all 
testimonies that the dynasty is incurably evil; 

Does some reader forbid us to bring the deeds of statesmen to 
the tests of pure religion or refined philosophy ? Well : let us 
then try them by the notions of old Paganism. Let it be 
imagined for a moment, that every nation is allowed to treat 
foreigners as a natural prey, — that there is no moral bond pre- 
existing between nation and nation, or primitively between 
family and family, — but that all moral obligation rises out of 
treaties, oaths, and laws. The Greek Xenopbon, travelling 
through a foreign country, urged his comrades not to make 
treaties of amity with the people, because this would be. an 
obstacle to replenishing the soldiers' empty pockets by slaughter 
and plunder. Who will say that Xenophon's code of morality 
was too elevated to apply to the princes of our age, and to their 
Jesuit instructors ? No beginning of national life, ever so rude, 
is possible, without some sense that Law and Oaths are sacred, 
and eminently those oaths which are taken by an official Pro- 
tector. The crime which history charges against the House of 
Austria, is not merely that they bave waged unjust and cruel 
wars against foreigners, (that is guilt too common here to 
touch ;) but that having been freely accepted to protect the laws 
and liberties of a large number of nations, they have in every 
instance played the part of a guardian who murders his ward. 
Such a charge does not take for granted that in every contro- 
versy between a King and a Nation the king is necessarily alone 
in the wrong ; but solely that no lawlessness of individuals will 
justify the official guardian of the laws" in extinguishing law. 
The House of Hapsburg was the constitutional ruler over 
nations once the freest in Europe : over Austria, the Nether- 
lands, Castile, Aragon, Sicily, Bohemia, Hungary, the German 
empire ; — to say nothing of Lombardy and Polish Galicia, which 
were conquered provinces. In every instance except Sicily 
(which after all is no real exception) the Austrian dynasty 
flagrantly betrayed its solemn trust ; and, — generally by open 
violence and perfidious ferocity, else by gradual encroachments, 
— has annihilated the fundamental compact on which its royal 



RISE OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 6 

dignity was founded. Such a tissue of conduct, even in the 
judgment of a Greek, or Punic, or Eoman heathen was impious 
and execrable crime. The holders of power so gained were re- 
garded as self-outlawed, — hateful to gods, and deserving of no 
defence from men. We proceed to give some details of these 
events. 



II.— BISE OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 

The eminence of the House of Austria begins with the cele- 
brated Kudolf, count of Hapsburg, who was elected King of the 
Eomans, (or heir-presumptive to the German empire,) in 1273, 
and shortly after, emperor; a high dignity which at that time 
bound together the Sovereign States of Germany, much as the 
United States of America are now bound together by their 
Congress and President. The emperor was elected for life, 
yet the tendency was always strong to elect continually out of 
the same royal house ; and the great energy with which Eudolf 
rescued Germany from the licence of anarchical barons, was 
rewarded by the permanent elevation of his descendants. 

These princes, like all others, encroached and invaded wher- 
ever they were able, and with no small success : — using their 
hereditary dominions to support their imperial pretensions, and 
their imperial powers to extend their hereditary authority. But 
the vast aggrandizement of the House of Austria has depended, 
primarily upon royal marriages, and secondarily, upon dread of 
the Turks. 

1. A well-known Latin epigram celebrated the matrimonial 
alliances of the House of Hapsburg in the following words : 

" Wars, let others wage ! but thou, lucky Austria, marry ! 
For the kingdoms which Mars gives to others, Venus gives to thee." 

This, as history, is strictly true, which will appear from the fol- 
lowing summary. — Mary of Burgundy, sole daughter of Charles 
the Rash, was only eighteen when her father was slain, who was 
sovereign of the Netherlands, Burgundy, Artois, and Franche 
Comte. Immediately after, she gave her hand and kingdom fin 
1477) to the Austrian Maximilian, afterwards Emperor, first of 
that name. — The elective crowns of Bohemia and of Hungary 
had been united in one sovereign. The kingdom of Bohemia 
included Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia; the dependencies of 
Hungary were Bosnia, Servia, Croatia, Sclavonia, Transylvania, 

B 2 



4 EISE OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 

part of Wallachia, and Moldavia. Various treaties and family 
compacts (wholly invalid in law) had been made between the 
House of Austria and the Bohemo-Hungarian dynasty, to fa- 
vour the union of all the crowns ; and alarm, of the Turks made 
this desire natural and venial in the eastern powers, which 
had to bear the brunt of their attack. Maximilian induced 
Ladislaus, king of Hungary and Bohemia, to contract a double 
marriage with the House of Hapsburg, by the union of Louis 
and Anne, son and daughter of Ladislaus, to two of Maximi- 
lian's grandchildren. This marriage was indeed opposed by the 
elective king of Poland, Sigismund, brother of Ladislaus ; but 
Maximilian constrained his assent by giving another grand- 
daughter in marriage to Christian II., king of Denmark, Norway 
and Sweden ; as also by intrigues with the Teutonic knights and 
with the Grand Duke of Muscovy. — Moreover, in the second 
year of his imperial authority, Maximilian, being a widower, 
had disgusted the German sovereigns by marrying the sister of 
the Duke of Milan, for the sake of her large dowry, and for the 
chances of adding the Milanese to the dominions of his family. 
So well did he understand the weapons of his warfare. 

Meanwhile the crowns of south-western Europe were simi- 
larly consolidated. Sardinia had been conquered by a king of 
Aragon. The throne of Sicily, being vacant, was first filled by 
a prince of Aragon, with the goodwill of the Sicilians ; next, on 
his premature death, a tacit union of the crowns of Sicily and 
Aragon took place in 1412, after the King of Aragon had ex- 
pressly stipulated that the separate constitution and independence 
of Sicily should be preserved. Ferdinand of Aragon, inherit- 
ing both crowns, married Isabella, queen of Castile ; and thus 
strengthened, conquered the rest of Spain and the kingdom of 
Naples, so as to unite under his throne all Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, 
and half of Italy. 

Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, was married to 
Philip the Handsome, son of Maximilian and of Mary of Bur- 
gundy. By this union, the crowns of Spain, Sicily and Naples 
were added to the House of Hapsburg. The sons born of the 
marriage were Charles of Ghent and Ferdinand the First of 
Hapsburg. Charles inherited the thrones of two grandfathers 
and two grandmothers, and $as elected emperor of Germany. 
Ferdinand became archduke of 'Austria by his brother's affec- 
tion, and was elected to the crowns of Bohemia, Hungary, and 
at length of Germany, in consequence of the terror which the 
Turks inspired. This deserves a few words of explanation. 

2. Despotism which is transitional often performs the task of 



CASTILE. 5 

blending the heterogeneous elements of a nation, and fusing it 
into a single nationality, out of which grows patriotism and 
strength. But all history testifies that permanent despotism 
causes decay. We must not, then, wonder that the Turkish 
power, now so despised, was dreadful to all Europe three and 
four centuries ago. Its actual resources of men and of wealth 
have declined, while those of Christendom have vastly increased ; 
moreover, its own belief in its destiny has received the severest 
moral wounds. 

Louis, king of Hungary and Bohemia, fell with the flower of 
the Hungarian nobility by the arms of Solyman the Magnificent, 
in the fatal battle of'Mohacs, Aug. 29th, 1526. The moral 
effect on all Europe was immense. Dread of the Turks over- 
powered in the minds of the Hungarian and Bohemian peers 
their well-founded jealousy of the House of Hapsburg ; so that 
Ferdinand of Austria was elected to both crowns. Of the 
details we shall afterwards speak. 

Nothing is commoner, than that public danger threatening 
from a foreign power induces nations to lend great military force 
into the hand of some king or general ; and nothing, alas ! is 
commoner, than perfidy in the Trustee of power. The same 
drama was acted on a greater scale in the history of the House 
of Austria. 



III.— CASTILE. 



Charles of Ghent, son of Philip and Joanna, was born in the 
year 1500 of our era. When only 16 years old, he usurped 
royal power in Spain ; while his mother, — queen in her own 
right, — was swallowed up in grief at his father's death. The 
usurpation was inwardly resented, but led to no public resist- 
ance. — In the third year afterwards, he was elected emperor of 
Germany, to the deepest dissatisfaction of leading Spaniards, 
who foreboded the evil results, yet dreaded a convulsive struggle, 
if they attempted to forbid such a union of crowns. 

A statement of grievances had been already laid before him, 
and redress had been claimed. The principal cities of Castile 
now insisted on a reply to their demands, before he should 
quit the country. He had spent prematurely the first donative 
voted to him by the Cortes ; and as he was exceedingly in want 
of money, he was forced to summon them anew. But, in order 
to withdraw it from the watchful eye of the Castilian public, he 



6 CASTILE. 

summoned the Cortes (or Parliament) contrary to all usage, in 
the remote Spanish province of Galicia ; and there, by whatever 
influences, to the amazement of the country, obtained a second 
cc free gift" before the time was passed for paying the first, and 
without redressing a single grievance. Having got the money, 
he cared no more for his people ; but departed to receive the 
imperial crown, illegally leaving a Fleming, cardinal Adrian, as 
his viceroy in Spain. 

The cities of Toledo and Segovia were irritated by these 
unconstitutional proceedings into acts of violence; whereupon 
the Fleming at once proceeded against them in battle array, 
as if they had been foreign enemies. His troops reduced the 
town of Segovia to ashes ; upon which the public rage against 
him as a foreign usurper aroused the people everywhere into 
warlike resistance. A great convention of the Commons took 
place, and a general Junta or Association was organized. The 
young Emperor hereupon wrote letters of great gentleness and 
concession to the Commons, exhorting them to lay down their 
arms, and specially promising that in future no public office 
should be conferred upon any but native Castilians. But at 
the same time, he sent other letters to the nobles, exciting them 
to oppose the Commons ; and, unhappily for the nobles them- 
selves, as well as for Spain, he succeeded in winning them over 
to his cause. 

The grievances of which the Commons complained, — con- 
densed by Robertson, — are remarkable, as showing how similar 
they have been in all Europe. After a long preamble concerning 
the various calamities under which the nation groaned, in con- 
sequence of the errors and corruption in government, they 
notice the exemplary patience with which the people had endured 
them, until at last duty forced them to provide in a legal manner 
for their own safety and that of the constitution : for this pur- 
pose they demanded, 1 . that the King would, like all his pre- 
decessors, reside in Spain ; 2. that he would not marry without 
the consent of the Cortes; 3. that if ever obliged to leave the 
kingdom, he would make no foreigner regent; 4. that he should 
bring in no Flemings or other foreigners round his person ; 
5. that no foreign troops should, on any pretence whatever, 
be introduced into the kingdom; 6. that none but natives 
should be capable of holding any office or benefice in Church or 
State; 7. that no foreigner should be naturalized by the King's 
sole authority ; 8. that free quarters shall not be granted to 
soldiers or King ? s servants, for more than six days, and that, only 
when the Court is in a progress ; 9. that -all the taxes shall be 



CASTILE. 7 

replaced as they were at the death of Queen Isabella; 10. that 
all new offices since created by the mere authority of the Crown 
shall be abolished; 11. that the subsidy granted by the late 
Cortes in Galicia shall not be exacted; 12. that the Crown shall 
not interfere in elections; 13. that no member of the Cortes 
shall receive office or pension from the King ; 14. that the bribes 
given or promised at that Cortes shall be revoked ; 15. that in all 
future Cortes each city shall send one representative of the 
clergy, one of the gentry, and one of the Commons, each to be ' 
elected by his own order ; 16. that each constituency shall pay 
a competent indemnification to its representative; 17. that the 
Cortes shall assemble once in three years at least, whether sum- 
moned by the King or not, and shall then at once proceed to busi- 
ness ; 18. that judges shall have fixed salaries ; 19. that no grant 
of the goods of persons accused shall be valid, if given before 
sentence was pronounced against them; 20. that gold, silver 
and jewels shall not be sent out of the kingdom ; 21. that the 
then Archbishop of Toledo, being a foreigner, shall be compelled 
to resign. 

To all these demands it is probable that the nobles heartily 
acceded ; but the Commons, regarding the crisis important for 
confirming the public liberties, which manifestly had as yet been 
insufficiently defended, made other claims which the nobles were 
too selfish to endure. Generally, it was demanded that all privi- 
leges which the nobles had obtained to the prejudice of the Com- 
mons, should be revoked ; and in particular, 1. that the govern- 
ment of cities or towns be not put [by the act of the Crown] 
into the hands of noblemen ; 2. that the possessions of the nobility 
be subject to all public taxes in the same manner as those of the 
commons ; 3. that inquiry be made into the management of the 
Crown estates in past years; and that if the King do not in 30 
days appoint competent auditors, it shall be lawful for the Cortes 
to appoint them ; 4. that indulgence shall not be proclaimed in 
the kingdom without leave of the Cortes, and that the money 
thence arising shall be faithfully employed in the Turkish wars ; 
5. that prelates absent from their dioceses more than half the year 
shall forfeit their revenues during their absence ; 6. that ecclesias- 
tical judges shall not exact greater fees than those in the secular 
courts. 

Finally it was demanded that the King should ratify all the 
proceedings of the Commons, as good constitutional service; 
should pass an amnesty for any excesses into which the cities 
had been hurried by zeal; should solemnly swear to the articles, 
and neoer solicit pope or prelate to absolve him from his oath. 



O CASTILE. 

It is of great interest to read these details, because they show 
how opposite to revolutionary were the principles of the Com- 
mons ; how distinct and well specified are their demands, how 
free from highflown and dangerous generalizations. 

Nevertheless, the deputies appointed to lay this Bill of Eights 
before the King, were warned that they could not do so without 
endangering their lives. Upon their return with this news, the 
excitement was great, and the Commons resolved to arm the 
whole country. But the nobles also armed their vassals, who 
were more accustomed to war. Dread of fratricidal conflict led 
to negotiations. The Commons hereupon fell into division : 
some were for concessions to the nobles, and the rest then 
began to doubt what was to be the prize of victory. Some of 
the cities were won over to the nobles, and in consequence only 
the more violent counsels prevailed among the rest. But the 
nobles with the royal party defeated the army of the Commons, 
and the popular cause was ruined. The consequences are thus 
told by the historian : * 

" The Cortes still continued to make a part of the Castilian 
Constitution, and was summoned to meet whenever the King 
stood in need of money ; but instead of adhering to their ancient 
and cautious form of examining and redressing public grievances 
before they proceeded to grant any supply, the more courtly 
custom of voting a donative in the first place was introduced ; 
and the Sovereign, having obtained all that he wanted, never 
allowed them to enter into any inquiry, or to attempt any refor- 
mation injurious to his authority. The privileges which the 
cities had enjoyed were gradually circumscribed or abolished ; 
their commerce began from this period to decline ; and becoming 
less wealthy and populous, they lost that power and influence 
which they had acquired in the Cortes." 

But the termination of these events was not till seventeen 
years later. In 1539 Charles held a Cortes at Toledo to demand 
a general excise on commodities, in order to discharge his enor- 
mous war-debts. But the Spaniards already felt themselves 
oppressed with a load of taxes unknown to their ancestors ; and 
the nobles in particular inveighed against imposts which would 
fall upon them, and thus violate the distinguishing right of their 
Order. Alas ! in their shortsightedness they had made the Em- 
peror their master by fighting his battle against the just demands 
of the Commons. He now unceremoniously dispensed with the 
presence of the nobility at the Cortes ; and summoned only the 

* Robertson, book iii.; year 1522. 



VALENCIA AND ARAGON. 9 

36 representatives of 18 cities. This assembly was too feeble to 
withstand any commands of the Emperor, and became thence- 
forward a mere screen of despotism. Charles, who had essen- 
tially subverted the constitution of the Cortes, tried to disguise 
the breach of his oath by this shadowy assembly. Thus were 
the public liberties of Castile destroyed by their King. Courtly 
disputants may talk about the " rights of conquest ;" but such 
phraseology merely assimilates kings to robbers, and exhibits 
their cause as that of lawlessness and selfwill. 



IV.— VALENCIA AND AKAGON. 

No royalty in Europe was restricted by wiser laws or by 
popular liberties earlier developed than Aragon, to which Va- 
lencia and Catalonia had been united. Popular representation 
(says Hallam) was more ancient in Aragon, than in any Euro- 
pean monarchy. The heir to the crown was not permitted to 
asssume the name of king, or exercise any royal authority, until 
he had knelt to pronounce the coronation oath, administered to 
him by the Chief Justice. Eoyalty was not conceived of as an 
inherent superiority of blood, but as an official superiority gua- 
ranteed for mutual benefit under mutual responsibilities. This 
was strikingly denoted by the very words of the Oath of Alle- 
giance which followed the Coronation Oath, and is almost rude 
and minatory in its very promise of loyalty. " We, 5 ' was the 
response of the Chief Justice to the King, in the name of all 
the barons, — " We, tclio are separately as good as you, and 
collectively more powerful than you, promise obedience to your 
government, if you maintain our rights and liberties; but if 
not, not." A fundamental article provided for deposing the 
king, if unfaithful. The Chief Justice was irremovable by the 
king, and had (as the English Judges) full power to interpret 
law, and overrule illegal acts of the executive Government, espe- 
pecially in the matter of false imprisonment. After this it will 
readily be conceived, that the whole Aragonese system was as 
far as that of modern England from enduring the thought that 
the King was superior to the law. Nevertheless, in the kingdom 
of Valencia, which was united to that of Aragon, the power of 
the nobles over the commonalty appears to have been oppres- 
sive, and presently gave a handle to despotism. When young 
Charles of Ghent was about to receive the imperial crown of 

B 3 



iO VALENCIA AND ARAGON. 

Germany, he sent a proxy to hold the Cortes at Valencia, and 
request " a free gift" of them; but they replied that by the fun- 
damental laws they were not allowed to acknowledge an absent 
king, nor to grant him any subsidy. Hereupon, Charles, in- 
stead of listening or inquiring into the law, seized the opportu- 
nity of an insurrection of the populace against the domination 
of the nobility, and authorized the revolters to continue in arms. 
His edict gave a vast impetus to the popular movement. The 
multitude expelled the nobles, elected their own magistrates, 
and formed an association of " Brotherhood" which committed 
wild excesses.* It is striking to observe, at that early period 
the development in the House of Austria of this unprincipled 
tendency to foster anarchical violence, with a view to overturn 
the barriers of law. It is the old policy of false demagogues 
who are seeking to become tyrants ; but, except in this House, it 
is rarely seen in the actual occupants of royalty. 

The " Brotherhood" not only drove out the nobles from most 
of the cities, but proceeded to plunder their houses, waste their 
lands, and assault their castles. The nobles took up arms in 
self-defence, and two years of inveterate civil war (1520 & 1521) 
scourged the country. At last, when the royal party had suc- 
ceeded against the Commons in Castile, Charles threw himself 
into the scale of the Yalencian nobility, and with them crushed 
the deluded populace. 

The kingdom of Valencia was so united to that of Aragon, 
that its constitution could not be avowedly invaded while that 
of Aragon stood. It was undermined greatly by this civil war, 
which the King first excited and then quelled ; having punished 
the nobles and middle classes by means of the lower people, 
and finally made the former owe their deliverance to him. Yet 
it was reserved for his son Philip II. to finish the work thus 
begun. 

Philip, as historians tell us, had been a party to the assassi- 
nation of Escovedo, secretary to his half brother, Don John of 
Austria : whose death soon after was likewise thought suspi- 
cious. Antonio Perez, the secretary and confidant of Philip, 
who was supposed to know these and other shameful transac- 
tions, being persecuted by the King's jealousy, escaped into his 
native Aragon ; and when there arrested by the King's orders, 
appealed to the law of the land. The Chief Justice, as was his 
duty, claimed for him a public trial before his own court ; to 
evade which, the King had Perez accused of heresy by the In- 

* Robertson, Charles V., book i. ; year 1522. 



BOHEMIA. 11 

quisition. But the Justice would not surrender him to that 
arbitrary tribunal. The Marquess of Almenara, the King's 
minister, broke open the prison by violence to seize him, and 
died by the rough usage which befel him, in the tumult which 
he had provoked. 

Upon this Philip ordered a Castilian army to invade Aragon. 
By such an extravagant illegality, which in fact made him a 
public enemy, the Aragonese were roused to resistance. The 
Chief Justice called the people to arms, and the priests exhorted 
them in the same cause ; but the nobility shamefully deserted 
the public liberties, and the royal general overbore the untrained 
levies of the Commons. Upon this Philip wrote to him with his 
own hand, and without the countersignature of any minister : — 
" As soon as you receive this, you are to proceed to imprison 
" and execute the Chief Justice, Don Juan de Lanuza ; and let 
" me hear of his execution as §oon as of his imprisonment." The 
order was literally obeyed ; and thenceforward the constitution 
of Aragon was an empty name. A pretence and form of it in- 
deed remained under the House of Austria, and the formal abo- 
lition of the liberties of Aragon and Valencia was reserved for 
Philip Y. in the eighteenth century, the first Bourbon king of 
Spain. But no one imagines that any real liberty or security 
for the dearest rights of man continued in Aragon after Philip's 
invasion of his kingdom with foreign forces. The shadow of 
a constitution which he left did but remind the nation of his 
perfidy. 



V.— BOHEMIA. 



Ferdinand, brother of the Emperor Charles, was freely chosen 
to fill the elective throne of Bohemia, and also of Hungary, in 
the year 1526. He had in the first instance imprudently 
claimed both Crowns, in virtue especially of the private family- 
compact with the late king Louis, his wife's brother and his 
sister's husband ; but the Estates (or Parliament) of Bohemia, 
alarmed at such pretensions, scrupulously enforced every legal 
ceremony that might put beyond a doubt the freedom of their 
choice. A Coronation being always attended with pomp and 
display, the oath attached to it is liable to be treated by princes 
as a mere form. In the vain hope of inventing a covenant purely 
personal, the Bohemians, (as the Hungarians after them,) exacted, 
previous to coronation, the royal signature to a written Charter, 



12 BOHEMIA. 

which Historians name a Reversal* In this deed, the new King 
avowed that he had received the crown, not by any previous 
right, but by a gratuitous and voluntary election. In his letter 
of thanks to the Estates, he promised to observe the Religious 
Compacts, to raise no foreigners to any office of State, to govern 
the kingdom according to ancient laws and customs, and to reside 
at Prague.f He soon afterwards repaired to Iglau, took the 
solemn Coronation Oath, and proceeded forthwith to break his 
engagements. 

His first great palpable breach of faith was in becoming an 
absentee from Bohemia for ten full years ; which of itself made 
constitutional government by a foreigner and a new king almost 
impossible. After he had concluded a peace with the Turks 
and had nothing to fear from abroad, he not only committed the 
illegality of restoring the archiepiscopal see of Prague, hereby 
violating the Eeligious Compacts, but was daring enough for- 
mally to recant the Reversal, and claimed to be Hereditary sove- 
reign, in virtue of his marriage, and of the family- compacts. J 
This of course produced the greatest indignation : but the Bo- 
hemians, though then as free as any nation in the world, knew 
not how to proceed against an impudence so startling. Royal 
perfidy cannot possibly be punished by anything short of de- 
position, and nations always suffer long and much, before they 
can agree to apply this remedy. 

Ferdinand was emboldened by his impunity, and by his brother's 
successful annihilation of the liberties of Castile. That brother was 
now engaged in a similar project against the religious liberties of 
Germany, and asked aid from Ferdinand. The Diet of Bohemia, 
in 1546, granted to the King a large levy of troops to defend the 
country against the Turks or other public enemies ; upon which, 
the King compelled them to invade the territories of the elector 
of Saxony, the dearest foreign friend of Bohemia. This was a 
direct breach of the constitution, which vested in the Estates the 
right to make war. He followed it up by an edict, ordering new 
levies of men at his own will, and declaring that all who dis- 
obeyed it " should, according to the laws of the land, be deprived 
" of their honours, lives and property." The passive resistance of 
the nation forced him nevertheless to convene a Diet, from which 
by flatteries, by false pretences, and by rescinding his illegal 
edict, he gained partial concessions. But no sooner was this 

* Robertson, Charles V., book iv. The Deed (says Coxe) is preserved in 
Groldastus de Privileges Bohemiae, App. 206. 
f Coxe, ch. 33. X Coxe, ch. 34. 



BOHEMIA. 13 

achieved, than he endeavoured again to send the Bohemian 
armies against Saxony, and bring his brother's armies into 
Bohemia ; and thereby at last forced his people to stand on their 
defence. The delegates then plainly told him, that the Estates 
had certain information of a design to overturn the constitution, 
destroy the kingdom, and extirpate the language of Bohemia. 

In the midst of this armed neutrality came the startling news 
that the Emperor Charles had defeated and dethroned the Elector 
of Saxony, which removed the immediate matter of controversy, 
and caused in the popular league an incipient break-up. The 
Estates were alarmed, and passed a dutiful vote, that as the war 
was now concluded, and as they fully confided in his gracious 
promise not to introduce foreign troops into Bohemia, they were 
willing to dismiss their levies ; and on the next day they issued 
orders to their commander to this effect. 

Only a short time before, Ferdinand had been at their mercy. 
He had violated his oaths, and had attempted to act tyrannically ; 
they had shown their power, but had not used it. This (it 
seems) is an unpardonable sin to a king. Ferdinand seized the 
moment (July 2nd, 1547) to bring his brother's armies into 
Prague, — itself an act of perjury. He established a reign of terror 
by executions, imprisonments, banishments, confiscations ; dis- 
armed the people, and loaded them with arbitrary and exorbitant 
taxes; remodelled at pleasure the political rights of all the 
Bohemian towns but three ; terrified the Diet by bloody execu- 
tions beneath their eyes, before proceeding to business ; passed 
what laws he pleased : bade the public carnifex, between the 
blows dealt to his victims, to proclaim Ferdinand " their Here- 
ditary Lord ;" destroyed freedom of the press, brought in Jesuits, 
and gave over to them the public education. 

Having thus by a tissue of perjury and murder changed Bo- 
hemia from an elective into a hereditary monarchy, "he restored 
tranquillity, (says Archdeacon Coxe, the favouring historian 
whom we closely follow,) and suppressed the factions of a volatile 
and turbulent people ; yet he at the same time depressed that 
energy of mind and military ardour, which are inseparable 
from a free government and are fostered by civil contests, and 
checked that active commercial spirit which flourishes in the 
consciousness of independence. From this cause the towns, 
which had hitherto been remarkable for their commerce, 
wealth, and population, exhibited under his reign the first 
symptoms of decline; and the Bohemians began to lose that 
military fame, which had rendered them the example and the 
terror of Europe" 



14 BOHEMIA. 

But this was only the beginning of sorrows to Bohemia. 
Their constitution was not yet formally destroyed ; it had only 
been remade at the pleasure of the King, and the fatal House of 
Austria been riveted round their necks. The Ferdinand who 
was guilty of these deeds, is praised by historians as an amiable 
man, exemplary in private life, and the best sovereign of this 
dynasty, except his son Maximilian II. 

But Eudolf II., son of Maximilian, a pupil of the Jesuits, 
convulsed all his dominions by his fanatical efforts to extirpate 
Protestantism, with equal disregard to natural justice and mercy, 
as to the laws and his oaths. Bohemia had her full share of his 
atrocity, which ended in his deposition by his brother Matthias. 
One episode of Budolf's Bohemian proceedings deserves to be 
here mentioned, from its striking similarity to the recent trea- 
cherous dealings of Austria with Jellachich. 

Eudolf, when alarmed at the treason of his brother Matthias, 
suddenly became gracious towards the Bohemian Protestants, 
and courted the good-will of the Estates. They demanded and 
obtained full toleration,* and redress of numerous grievances, 
July 5th, 1609 ; but in the very next year he violated his engage- 
ments. A great insurrection of Bohemia followed ; and Henry IV. 
of Prance prepared to invade Germany, in favour of the Protes- 
tants. On May 14th, 1610, Henry fell opportunely by the stroke 
of an assassin, and the French war was stopped. Eudolf now, 
by means of his brother Leopold, sent in a general named Bame'e, 
with 16,000 men, who desolated Upper Austria and Bohemia. 
It was impossible to conceal that this was a shameful plot of the 
Emperor's, and that his aim was, to annul the Eeligious Privi- 
leges, which he had of late so solemnly re-enacted with fresh 
sanctions. To withhold the Bohemians from immediate action, 
Eudolf, in the Diet at Prague, " called God to witness that the 
" irruption was without his knowledge or consent," recommended 
the adoption of vigorous measures against Ramee, and sent a 
herald commanding Leopold to withdraw his troops. Leopold 
affected innocence equal to that of his brother, and threw the 
blame on Eamee. A truce and a treaty was made. Leopold 
lulled the Bohemians into security, and then by aid of massacre 
took military possession of Prague during the festivities which 
celebrated the peace. Nevertheless he was repulsed and his 
crime useless. Eudolf found he could no longer cloak his 

* To the Royal Edict a singular clause was annexed, by which Rudolf 
declared all future ordinances to be null, whether from him or his successors, 
which should attempt to change or abrogate the act of toleration. — Coxe, 
ch. 44. 



BOHEMIA. 15 

treachery, and avowed himself the patron of Leopold and of 
Ramee. But the rage of the Bohemians was roused, universal 
levies took place, the Moravians joined them, Matthias had won 
over the Hungarians, and Eudolf was deposed. 

Matthias was unable to justify his own usurpation, except by 
avowing that the right of transferring the crown was inherent in 
the Estates. Accordingly, on the 23rd of May, 1611, he was 
glad to be chosen king with all the forms of an elective monarchy, 
and confirmed all the old rights and privileges of the nation, 
civil and religious. Bohemia seemed for a moment to have 
recovered her inalienable liberties, even under the House of 
Hapsburg. 

Nevertheless, it was no part of Matthias's intention to allow 
to the Bohemians either full religious freedom or the elective 
monarchy. When his health was sinking he introduced his 
nephew Ferdinand to the Estates at Prague, with the following 
words : " As I and my brothers are without children, I deem it 
necessary for the advantage of Bohemia that my kinsman Fer- 
dinand be proclaimed and crowned king : I therefore request 
you to fix a day for the confirmation of this appointment." 
Erom a dread of civil war the Estates acceded, although Ferdi- 
nand was personally much feared by the Protestants ; but the 
pretence that the King was still allowing their right to elect, was 
pleaded to overcome scruples. In other affairs Matthias was a 
far better prince than either his predecessor or his successor ; but 
in forcing such a successor upon the Bohemians, he bequeathed 
to them misery and national ruin. 

Ferdinand instantly broke his coronation oath by interfering 
with the Government in the lifetime of Matthias. His ministers 
were selected for their bigotry, and one of them plainly declared 
that executions and confiscations were necessary, " to restore 
tranquillity," and to overthrow the Eoyal Edict, which they main 
tained not to be binding, because it had been obtained by force. 
At the same time it became known that Ferdinand had made a 
secret treaty with Spain to transfer the crown ultimately to the 
Spanish branch of the family. This deed, at once illegal and 
traitorous, was in itself enough to justify his deposition in the 
court of conscience. The attempt of the Court to restrict the 
freedom of Protestant worship was resolutely resisted in its first 
steps, since "warning so plain had been given, that the practical 
intolerance of the Crown would increase up to the full measure 
of the weakness of the people ; and the dreadful Thirty Years' 
War began in 16.18, in spite of Matthias's endeavours to control 
the prince whom he had raised. Matthias had persecuted Lu- 



16 BOHEMIA. 

therans and Calvinists in Bohemia, leaving only the older Pro- 
testants, the successors of Huss, unmolested; but he foresaw 
the horrors of the new war, which was already begun in earnest. 
He convoked the Estates at Vienna ; but in reply to his request 
for succours and subsidies, he was met with demands for the redress 
of grievances, aud with just reproaches for plunging into a war 
against Bohemia without their consent. He met with no better 
success even from the Catholics of the German Empire, who 
shuddered at the coming calamities, and strongly urged him to 
eifect a reconciliation at all events. He resolved to do so ; over- 
ruled his nephew Eerdiuand, and summoned the insurgents to 
negotiation ; but his broken strength failed under the exaspera- 
ation endured from his nephew, and under the humiliation of the 
Crown. He expired before the pacification could be effected. 

Eerdinand, now uncontrolled, took on himself unhesitatingly 
the entire responsibility and guilt of the war, which all parties 
so abhorred and deprecated. He made indeed an attempt to 
deceive the insurgents, by a letter, which solemnly promised that 
he would fulfil all the engagements which he had made at his 
coronation : but his acts at the same time disproved his words. 
They therefore refused the truce which he had asked in order to 
gain time, declared him to have forfeited the throne, and elected 
Frederick the elector Palatine, king of Bohemia. In the decisive 
step of deposing Eerdinand, the Estates of Bohemia, Moravia, 
Silesia, and Lusatia combined. It was strictly a national and 
unanimous proceeding. 

Unhappily for Bohemia, the new king, though amiable and 
esteemed, was not equal to his difficult position. He is re- 
proached with having made alliance with the Sultan of Turkey, 
who was too distant to help him ; and by this act he is said to 
have disgusted the German Protestants. It is rather to be feared 
that they wanted an excuse for not aiding him ; for which selfish- 
ness they presently paid dearly. Ferdinand's experienced gene- 
rals, with the aid of 20,000 Spaniards^ defeated Frederick in 
the battle of the White Mountain, near Prague, which decided 
the fate of Bohemia, and excited Ferdinand, now emperor of 
Germany, to still wider projects against German liberty. 

Prague had no choice but to admit the Austro-Spanish armies, 
and obtained exemption from plunder, but no political compact. 
They were disarmed, and the Estates w r ere forced to take an 
unconditional oath of allegiance. For three months no severity 
whatever followed. The principal insurgents were deceived by 
this apparent lenity, and came out from their hiding-places. When 
the dissimulation of Ferdinand had thus obtained its object, he 



BOHEMIA. 17 

suddenly arrested 40 principal persons in the night (Jan. 21st, 
1621) and executed 23 of them, confiscating their property also. 
The rest he banished or condemned to perpetual imprisonment. 
Proscription and confiscation was published against the chiefs 
who had fled the country ; and, more monstrous still, an Edict 
commanded that all landholders who had taken any part in the 
late attempt to uphold the laws against tyrannical usurpation, 
should come forward and accuse themselves, under the threat of 
severest vengeance if any who declined were afterwards con- 
victed. Many who had been too timid to join in the insurrec- 
tion were believed to have been driven by the same timidity to 
a false self-accusation. Above 700 nobles and knights, having 
thus registered their own guilt, were at once expelled from their 
property by this king, whose avowed aim was the ruin and extir- 
pation of Protestants. 

After this, he might have had peace, with full power over 
Bohemia. But he could not be satisfied without vengeance on 
his rival Frederick, whom he resolved to ruin, though German 
liberty must perish with him. He lawlessly proscribed Frederick 
and his adherents by a bare imperial Edict : declared their terri- 
tory forfeited and divided among Catholic princes, and the 
electoral rights of the Palatinate transferred to the Catholic duke 
of Bavaria. By such an assumption of despotic power, he ulti- 
mately forced the German Protestants into arms against him ; 
and as he had aid from Spain, they too needed foreign alliances. 
Denmark was at first their chief support ; and since for some 
years Ferdinand carried on the war to a disadvantage, he was forced 
to delay farther cruelties against Bohemia; but in 1628, when 
his able general Waldstein had retrieved his affairs in Germany, 
and Bethlem Gabor, the great Prince of Transylvania, made 
peace with him in Hungary, Ferdinand judged that the time 
was come to destroy for ever the religion, nationality and 
language of Bohemia. 

We shall describe his proceedings in the very words of Arch- 
deacon Coxe. He ejected all the preachers, schoolmasters and 
professors, and delivered up the churches to monks, whom he 
had collected indiscriminately from all quarters of Europe. He 
prohibited all who were not Catholics from exercising any trade 
or handicraft ; laid the severest fines on all who preserved even 
in secret the slightest remnant of their former worship, declared 
Protestant marriages and baptisms null, and wills made by Pro- 
testants invalid. He even drove the poor, the sick, and the 
distressed from the almshouses and hospitals. 

In the capital, the Protestant burghers were expelled wdth 



18 BOHEMIA. 

their wives and families, and the poorer orders compelled to 
become Catholics. The other towns, and even the remotest 
villages, were visited by missionary deputations of Jesuits and 
Capuchin friars, accompanied by a military force. Houses were 
pillaged, men imprisoned, women and children exposed to all 
the outrages of the soldiery. Some were massacred without 
mercy, some hunted to the woods and mountains, some dragged 
to processions and masses with every species of insult and 
cruelty : and any who resisted were racked, mutilated and put 
to death with tortures too shocking to describe. 

In the midst of these horrors Ferdinand repaired to Prague 
to publish his clemency. He declared that he confirmed to the 
Estates their power of taxation and other civil privileges ; but 
he abolished their right to elect a king, and nominated and 
crowned his own son as his successor. He forbade the use of 
the Bohemian tongue in any public transaction, and formally 
abrogated the Koyal Edict of Toleration, by swearing to which 
he had attained the Crown himself. He restored the order of 
the Catholic clergy to its Middle-Age dignity, avowed that 
he would not tolerate a Protestant in the land, and formally 
banished all who did not in a specified time avow their ad- 
herence to the Catholic Church. By this act he drove out 
of the kingdom 30,000 families, with all theti servants and 
retainers, including the most learned, the richest, and most 
industrious portion of the community ; and thus inflicted on 
Bohemia a wound, from which (says Coxe) the country has 
never recovered. 

Though Coxe is as favourable to the House of Austria, as 
it is possible for an Englishman, a Protestant Archdeacon, and 
a man of humanity to be, exaggeration of these horrors will 
always be suspected in a Protestant writer. Coxe, therefore, 
has thought fit to fortify himself by the following ample sum- 
mary from a Catholic historian, a subject of the House of 
Austria. 

" The records of history scarcely furnish an example of such 
a change as Bohemia underwent during the reign of Ferdinand 
II. In 1620, except only the monks and a few of the nobility, 
the whole country was entirely Protestant : at the death of Fer- 
dinand it was, in appearance at least, Catholic. Till the battle 
of the White Mountain the Estates enjoyed more exclusive 
privileges than the Parliament of England. They enacted laws, 
imposed taxes, contracted alliances, declared war and peace, 
and chose or confirmed their kings ; but all these they now 
lost. Previous to that period the Bohemians were considered 



BOHEMIA. 19 

as a warlike nation. The annals of history recorded : ' The 
Bohemians took the field ; the Bohemians stormed the fortifi- 
cations ; the Bohemians gained the victory :' but they are now 
blended with other peoples and are no longer distinguished as 
a nation. Till this fatal period the Bohemians were daring, 
undaunted, enterprizing, emulous of fame : now they have lost 
all their courage, their national pride, their enterprizing spirit. 
They fled before the Swedes like sheep, or suffered themselves 
to be trampled under foot. The German language was used by 
the monks in their sermons, and became general among nobles 
and citizens, who grew ashamed of their native speech, as the 
tongue of villagers and peasants. The arts and sciences sank 
beyond recovery. During the period which immediately followed 
the banishment of the Protestants, Bohemia scarcely produced 
one man eminent in any branch of learning. The Caroline 
University was under the direction of the Jesuits, or suppressed : 
by order of the Pope all promotions were stopped, and no 
academical honours conferred. A few patriots, both among the 
clergy and laity, murmured openly, though ineffectually. The 
greater part of the schools were conducted by Jesuits and other 
monkish orders, who taught nothing but bad Latin. It cannot 
be denied, that several of the Jesuits were men of great learn- 
ing and science, but their system was, to keep the people in 
ignorance. Agreeably to this principle, they gave their scholars 
the rind only, and kept to themselves the pulp of literature. 
They travelled from town to town and house to house, examin- 
ing all the books ; which eveiy householder was forced to pro- 
duce. The greater part they confiscated and burnt ; so that a 
Bohemian book and a rare book are synonymous terms. They 
thus endeavoured to extinguish the ancient literature of the 
country, laboured to persuade the students, that, before the in- 
troduction of their Order into Bohemia, nothing but ignorance 
prevailed, and carefully concealed the learned labours, and even the 
names, of our ancestors. Such was their despotism, that only 
after the extinction of their Order was it possible to publish the 
collections and writings of the patriotic Balbinus on the litera- 
ture of the ancient Bohemians. In a word, from this period the 
history of Bohemia ceases, and the history of every other nation 
in Bohemia begins." 

Such is the reward that Bohemia reaped from electing 
monarchs of the House of Hapsburg. 



20 



VI.— PKOTESTANT GERMANY. 

The complicated system of the German Empire makes it hard 
to exhibit briefly the legal aspect of the contests between the 
Emperors of the House of Hapsburg, and the upholders of Con- 
stitutional liberty. In this subject, therefore, the general moral 
Yiew takes the lead of the purely constitutional question. 

It must however be understood, that the German Princes 
were sovereign in their own States, and, in the days of the 
Emperor Charles Y. (Charles of Ghent), had but recently re- 
nounced the right of separate war and peace. The Emperor, 
who was elected by seven of them, represented Germany-/ to the 
foreigner ; and, like the President of the United States, held a 
most important and honourable office : but his functions were as 
jealously limited. Nor only so : but the Diet also was rather 
to be compared to the American Congress than to an English 
Parliament : for its control was by no means unlimited over 
the separate States, which had complete internal jurisdiction. 

Until 1486 every State made peace and war at pleasure, and 
war of State against State was legal. In that year a ten years' 
peace was proclaimed; and in 1495 they all agreed, in a Diet 
at Worms, for ever to abolish separate war. It was not till 
1512 that the central organization was completed, which united 
all Germany. The States however had only effected union, by 
a definite treaty : they had not submitted to subjection, renounced 
sovereignty, nor thrown down their internal liberties to be tram- 
pled on by a majority of the Diet. 

The doctrines of Luther spread rapidly from 1517 to 1521, 
in which year the young Emperor Charles, — who on his acces- 
sion greatly needed the support of the Pope, — prevailed on a 
Diet at Worms to sanction a decree which he issued against 
Luther : but the Elector of Saxony refused to execute it. A few 
years after, the Emperor fell into a violent quarrel with the Pope ; 
and in 1526 gave a great impulse to the Eeformation, by pub- 
lishing a manifesto which taxed him with ingratitude, ambition, 
and deceit, and threatened to appeal from him to a general 
Council. Nor did he confine himself to words. His generals 
took Koine by storm, held possession of it for months, and 
inflicted upon the innocent Eomans everything that avarice, 
cruelty, and brutal lust can perpetrate. They besieged the Pope 
in the Castle of St. Angelo, and at length forced him to sur- 
render. Charles hypocritically went into mourning at the event, 
and ordered public prayers and processions in Spain for the re- 



PROTESTANT GERMANY. 21. 

covery of the Pope's liberty, which, by an order to his generals, 
he could have immediately granted. 

In a Diet of the Empire held at Spires, June 25th, 1526, an 
Act was passed which was regarded equivalent to a recognition 
of Protestantism. The doctrines of Luther had affected princes 
as well as their subjects, and were embraced zealously in many 
of the free cities. About one half of the Germanic body had 
declared itself free from the Papal See, and while Charles was 
at war with Eome, he was well pleased at this circumstance. 
But when his Castilian Parliament positively refused him more 
money, and he could not maintain his armies, he condescended 
to accept a ransom of the Pope; and in 1529 entered into close 
alliance with him. After this, he perceived that by becoming 
the champion of the Papacy he would have its influence to aid 
him in usurping power in Germany, where it was manifest that 
Catholicism would soon die out, if not saved by royal violences. 
— Having summoned another Diet at Spires, he demanded of it 
by his commissioners to prohibit all farther religious reform, and 
to authorize his decree against Luther. Pive Princes and four- 
teen free Cities solemnly protested against this decree, as unjust 
and impious. Hence their name Protestants. 

Charles made another attempt in the Diet at Augsburg to 
induce the Reformers to surrender their convictions peaceably ; 
but when that proved impossible, he prevailed on a majority of 
the Diet to issue a Decree condemning Protestantism, forbidding 
toleration of its teachers, enacting severe penalties against it, 
and commanding all orders of men to assist with their persons 
and fortunes in executing this decree. Such as refused to obey 
it were declared incapable of acting as judges, or of appearing as 
parties in the Imperial Chamber, the supreme Court of Judicature 
in the Empire. 

In this decree, stimulated by Emperor and Pope, the Diet 
usurped the right of deposing and outlawing sovereign princes 
and free cities, if they did not fulfil its persecuting edicts. The 
Protestant States, who knew that this Emperor had but a few 
years back overthrown the liberties of his Castilian subjects, saw 
at once that he would not hesitate to bring in foreign troops 
against them: they therefore formed in 1530 the League of 
Smalkald, for mutual defence against all aggressors. 

When prosecutions began in the Imperial Chamber against 
some of them on religious grounds, the League sent ambas- 
sadors into Prance and England. Charles did not dare as yet to 
encounter civil war in Germany, but he was safe, as knowing 
that the league would only stand on the defence. However, in 



22 PROTESTANT GERMANY. 

1535 it received more members. It then contained the Princes 
of Saxony, Brunswick, Hesse, Wirtemberg, Pomerania, Anhalt, 
Mansfield and Nassau : also twenty-four free cities, which ranked 
as princes : and the league was renewed for ten years. 

The Emperor justly deprecated the division and weakening 
of Germany which such a state of things occasioned. That it 
was in his power to terminate it by abandoning the effort to 
enforce uniformity in religion, did not occur to him; because 
the only sort of unity or of strength which he desired, was that 
of subjection to his absolute will. In 1540 the celebrated 
Council of Trent uttered sentences of condemnation against 
Protestants ; the Pope excommunicated and deposed the Arch- 
bishop of Cologne, an independent prince, and one of the 
Electors to the empire; and it soon was manifested beyond 
question, that it was the intention of the Emperor to carry out 
this sentence and crush the League of Smalkald. The Pro- 
testants with amazing celerity raised a great and well-appointed 
army, of 70,000 foot, 15,000 horse, 120 cannon, 800 ammu- 
nition waggons, 8000 beasts of burden, and 6000 pioneers: and 
this came from but a part of their number. Charles was 
aghast, having no force to meet them ; but they were too de- 
fensive and too moderate to succeed ; and he instantly under- 
stood his advantage. To a temperate and candid manifesto from 
them, Charles replied by declaring them rebels and outlaws, 
confiscating their goods, absolving their subjects from allegiance, 
and making it meritorious to invade their territories. 

These circumstances show, on which side the moral right lay. 
On legal questions, such as : — what were the limits of the 
Diet's authority, — good men may possibly have differed. But 
no candid person can question, that the Protestants were acting 
from conscience, and in the cause of reasonable freedom, while 
Charles was actuated only by personal ambition. The Emperor 
moreover violated the laws and his solemn oaths, by calling in 
Papal troops, Spaniards, Flemings, Bohemians, and Hunga- 
rians. — The confederates suffered disadvantage from divided 
authority ; and the treacherous Maurice of Saxony, for the bribe 
of his father-in-law's electoral dignities, stipulated to aid the 
Emperor. The insurgents suffered the usual penalty of modera- 
tion in those who are forced to oppose a tyrannical prince. 
Having been unwilling to strike while they were strong, they 
gave time for his intrigues, and fell unconditionally into his 
power. The dissolution of the League of Smalkald, and the 
dethronement, next year, of the Princes of Saxony and Hesse, 
were fatal blows to the liberty of all Germany. But as Charles 



PROTESTANT GERMANY. 23 

was no bigot, and, however haughty and unfeeling, too politic 
to be needlessly cruel, his usurpation and perjury appear small in 
comparison to the atrocities of the princes who were reared under 
Jesuit tuition. 

Nevertheless, the presumption and haughtiness which his suc- 
cesses developed in him, disgusted and terrified his own sup- 
porters. In consequence, Maurice of Saxony was able to extort 
from him the treaty of Passau, in 1552; which to a certain 
extent regained the Protestant liberties ; and gave rise to the 
Eeligious Peace, settled by the Diet of 1555. We may here 
mention, that it secured for all Princes and States of the Empire 
the right to tolerate or prohibit either religion within their own 
territories : and in so far, each State was independent of the 
Diet and of the Emperor. 

Ferdinand I. and Maximilian II. were very tolerant in reli- 
gious matters, on which the whole history of Germany turned. 
But Eudolf, a nurseling of the Jesuits, violated the Eeligious 
Peace, and convulsed all his dominions, as was above said. He 
suppressed Protestantism in the hereditary provinces of Austria, 
and thenceforward his House, except in one generation, has been 
the great enemy of religious freedom. 

Not to be tedious, it may here suffice to remark, that the reli- 
gious liberties of Germany were saved from the House of Hapsburg 
only at the cost of the calamitous Thirty Years' War, and with the 
aid of Denmark, Sweden and Prance. To estimate the slaugh- 
ters of this war, is difficult : — it has been said, that in whole 
provinces, two thirds of the population were exterminated. Much 
less is it possible to value the demoralization which it inflicted ; 
its destruction of national feelings and character, and its damage 
to all intellectual interests. It was the gift of the House of Haps- 
burg to Germany. Some of the horrible details of cruelty to- 
wards women and children which are reported in this war, move 
a reader's incredulity : but concerning the hideous atrocities 
perpetrated at the sack of Magdeburg by the Imperial armies, 
with the express sanction of the Imperial general Tilly, whose 
conduct was approved by the Court, — there is no possibility of 
doubting. 

In the peace of Westphalia, which terminated the war, a. d. 
1648, it was stipulated, among other things, that the Diet should 
not decide by a majority, but by amicable accommodation; 1. in 
all causes of religion; 2. in all affairs in which Germany could 
not be considered as single and indivisible; 3. in all affairs in 
which Protestants and Catholics voted collectively on opposite 
sides. — This indicates that the Diet had been made the tool and 



24 HEREDITAKY STATES OF AUSTRIA. 

screen of the Emperor's usurpations : and constitutionally, it 
distinguishes this struggle from the others in which the House 
of Hapsburg has engaged. — Moreover, the Sovereignty of the 
States was acknowledged, as well as their right to form alliances 
among themselves and with foreign States, provided that none 
were concluded against the Emperor or the Empire. All the 
sovereigns were put under an obligation, not to persecute their 
subjects who professed a religion different from their own : 
except that Ferdinand III. indignantly rejected this stipulation 
for Austria. — Finally, through the persecuting tendencies of 
this House, Germany has been hindered from coalescing into a 
single political community : in struggling for that first great ne- 
cessary of life, — Religious Freedom, — she has been forced to 
insist on upholding to an undesirable extent the independence 
of her small sovereignties. Everywhere the House of Haps- 
burg has done its utmost to secure, that men shall have no 
alternative between disorganization and its absolutism, between 
atheism and popery. 



VII.— HEREDITARY STATES OF AUSTRIA. 

It is rather an intricate history to trace the annihilation of the 
liberties of Austria; and after all that we have written on Ger- 
many, it is less important to follow out details. Abundantly 
evident is it, that Austria once, like Spain, Bohemia, and Hun- 
gary, had its free institutions, and that these have been long de- 
stroyed by the uniform treachery of the dynasty. 

It was mentioned that in the opening of the Thirty Years' War 
the Estates at Vienna positively refused supplies to the Emperor 
Matthias, and reproached him for plunging into a war with 
Bohemia without their consent. At that time we see that they 
retained the full power of an English* House of Commons. 
Ferdinand II., a few years after, abolished by force the Protes- 
tant worship in his hereditary dominions, with his usual severity. 
"We do not know whether this would have been sanctioned by 
the Estates, but it appears that he refused to summon them. 
During the Thirty Years' War, even the German Diet seems to 
have been suspended, until near to the close,* except that which 
was assembled to elect Ferdinand III. to the Empire. We have 

* Coxe, ch. 57, in fine. 



NETHERLANDS. 25 

stated that this sovereign, at the peace of Westphalia, inflexibly 
refused to tolerate Protestantism in his dominions. He suc- 
ceeded in farther breaking down the power and spirit of the 
Viennese Estates. In the next generation, the Estates had 
become accustomed to identify Catholicism with their own inte- 
rests, and with their sovereign. There was no opposition, " they 
were tranquil and loyal, and granted subsidies," says Coxe, " with 
cheerfulness and alacrity." The dangerous invasion of the 
Turks also insured the ardent unanimity of all Austria. 

The authority of the Estates of Austria could in no case 
have been maintained against the Crown, when it was manifest 
that their resistance to the will of the sovereign would simply 
have led to their violent extinction by his foreigu forces. Hence 
in Vienna, as formerly in Castile and Aragon, the Parliament 
became nothing but a shadow and a blind for the despotism. 
This state of things continued until a recent period. It was in 
1845-7, that a learned writer, Doblhoff, ventured to call public 
attention to the ancient rights of the Parliament; and in 1847 
the same man was employed, as Minister of the Crown, to aid 
in reorganizing the constitutional liberties. This was but a per-* 
iidious temporizing on the part of the dynasty. A court cabal, 
headed by the Archduchess Sophia, mother of the present Em- 
peror, plotted, from the day on which the new constitution was 
conceded, to overthrow it by treachery and by force of arms. 
This was done in October of the same year, by means of 
Windischgratz and Jellachich. Vienna was bombarded and 
taken by storm, men were shot in heaps, every vestige of freedom 
was annihilated anew, and pure military violence enthroned. 
For more than a year Vienna w T as kept under martial law ; and 
the rule of lawless force still continues in the very capital of the 
Austrian monarchy. 



VIII.— NETHERLANDS. 

We have stated how, by the marriage of Maximilian to Mary of 
Burgundy, the House of Austria gained a claim to her father's 
realms. Maximilian obtained actual possession of the Nether- 
lands and of Eranche Comte : but the rest of Mary's dominions 
were seized and kept by the rapacious Louis XL of Erance. 
Maximilian was never able to recover Burgundy, but Artois was 
at length ceded to him by Charles VIII., son of Louis. 

The Low Countries, from the earliest times, were distinguished 

c 



26 Netherlands. 

by a free spirit. The local privileges of the towns, which had 
been reserved by the burghers in submitting to the dukes of 
Burgundy, were remarkably great. Maximilian, by violating 
them immediately on Ms wife's death, raised up a civil war, in 
which he was made prisoner : and in spite of the interference of 
the Pope and of the German powers — (for he was then " King 
of the Romans," or heir apparent to the Empire) — he was 
forced to concede everything to his subjects, both privileges and 
amnesty. Maximilian was not a dark and malignant man ; but 
he learned from his contemporary, Louis XI. of France, to steal 
in like a fox, and devour like a tiger ; a lesson which his poste- 
rity have faithfully retained. 

Having called in the Emperor, with 40,000 men, he endea- 
voured to break loose from his recent solemn engagements, and 
establish a rule of force : but the valour of the Elemings and the 
military talents of Philip of Cleves thwarted him, and he was 
forced to a new compromise. Elanders paid him a subsidy, but 
held fast her political rights. 

When Maximilian succeeded to the Empire, his minor son, the 
handsome Philip, was left in the Netherlands as the nominal 
ruler ; and since he was popular, kind, and too young to inter- 
fere, the States prospered much under his inactivity. He lived 
to have children, but died prematurely ; his sister Margaret was 
named regent, and proved vigorous and sensible. The misfor- 
tunes of the people date from the era, when young Charles of 
Ghent, now emperor, proscribed " heretics" in the Low Countries, 
and violated the law by appointing functionaries for the express 
purpose of their pursuit and punishment. Thus did the House 
of Hapsburg, here, as everywhere else, begin, by its lawlessness, 
an atrocious contest. 

During the war of 1539, in which Charles had involved all 
his dominions against France, the people of Ghent, suspecting 
misappropriation of the funds which they had furnished for the 
campaign, oifered to march themselves against the enemy, instead 
of paying a further subsidy. When this was abruptly rejected 
by the Government, the people regarded it as a mark that it 
claimed to tax them at its pleasure, and riotous or seditious pro- 
tests followed. But so little idea of revolt was there in this, 
that when Charles came in person to Ghent, he was at once 
admitted. In fact, Ghent being his native town, he was per- 
sonally very popular there. — He forthwith arbitrarily beheaded 
27 persons as traitors, withdrew the principal privileges of the 
city at his own will, and built a citadel to hold it in check for 
the future. In Ghent no one dared to murmur ; but elsewhere 



NETHERLANDS. 27 

deep feeling showed itself, when the king, the sworn guardian 
of law, put men to death without trial, and perjuriously destroyed 
the permanent institutions of the country. 

Towards the end of his life, Charles redoubled his severities 
against the Protestants in the Netherlands, and introduced a 
modified form of the Inquisition; thus laying the foundation 
for the horrors of his son's reign. 

The freedom of the Netherlands had led to extraordinary 
industry, wealth, commerce, intelligence, and Protestantism. 
Literature, poetry, and art were also highly advanced, when in 
1555 Philip II. succeeded his father. Philip had been born 
and bred in Spain, trained in Romish and despotic principles : 
he had only once visited the Low Countries, and was then dis- 
gusted by their cordial manliness. He at first concealed his 
designs, and induced the Estates to vote subsidies to him, some 
of which were to be paid by instalments through nine years. 
But in four years' time, his deeply-laid plans for overthrowing 
pnblic liberty being discerned, the Estates replied to a new 
demand of his, by petitioning that he would " diminish the 
taxes, withdraw his foreign troops, and entrust no official em- 
ployments to foreigners." But the execution of heretics went 
on, and the country was roused to indignation. The Spanish 
soldiers, whom Philip had promised to withdraw in three months, 
were not withdrawn for two years, and had meanwhile ravaged 
a part of Zealand with open hostility. 

In 1561, Philip and the Pope, without consulting the Estates 
or Towns, took on them to reorganize the free Belgian Church, 
appointing 18 nominees of the King for Bishops, instead of 
four ecclesiastically elected ; with other arbitrary enactments 
which aimed to put the whole wealth of the abbeys at the dis- 
posal of the King. He would not assemble the Estates, and 
the people had no organs of resistance. The new bishops in- 
stantly assumed power, and began a terrible persecution of 
heresy. 

In 1564, Philip abated his violence for some months, and in 
appearance sacrificed an unpopular minister, — the foreigner, 
Cardinal Granville, — probably in the hope of lulling vigilance 
and damping enthusiasm : for in the same year he suddenly 
sent out the fiercest edicts against heresy, and ordered the 
decree of the Council of Trent to be published through the 
17 Provinces. Even the new bishops were disgusted with such 
an invasion of their constitutional rights ; and Philip proceeded 
to establish the Inquisition, with orders to burn alive, bury alive, 
and destroy secretly. This dreadful tribunal, against all law, 

c 2 



28 NETHERLANDS, 

and without any pretence of law, was brought into vigorous 
action in the beginning of 1566. Frightful insurrections fol- 
lowed, consisting frequently of a street-war of the most desperate 
kind, against these secret kidnappers and murderers. 

On the 10th of February the nobility rose, and an avowed 
public resistance commenced, but a change of dynasty was not yet 
thought of. Bands of peasants and low persons, excited to frenzy 
by the Inquisition, betook themselves to image-breaking, and 
other bloodless excesses. Four hundred churches were pillaged 
in a very short time ; and though the Prince of Orange and 
Count Egmont and other patriot-lords made some terrible ex- 
amples of summary vengeance on such robbers, Philip now 
fancied that he had a moral justification for any sort or amount 
of vengeance, and began that dreadful war which raged without 
cessation for 40 years. 

Yalenciennes was first besieged by the royal troops, and 
captured after 36 hours' bombardment. The confederacy was 
dissolved by dissensions, and royal despotism momentarily vic- 
torious. Swarms of refugees were driven into Germany and 
England, and the celebrated Duke of Alva in the summer of 
1567 entered the Low Countries with a veteran Spanish army, 
bent on rooting out heresy by military executions. Counts 
Egmont and Horn, who had refused to become revolutionists 
and foolishly imagined that their loyalty made them safe, were 
arrested, and in the next year were publicly beheaded. 

Alva had established a special tribunal of 12 members, called 
by him, the Council of Troubles, and by the people the Council 
of Blood. Without regard to form or law, rank, sex or age, it 
condemned and punished at pleasure. Hanging, beheading, 
quartering, burning, were every-day spectacles. Confiscations 
only increased the avarice of Alva and his satellites. With 
capricious despotism, he forbade marriage, as well as emigra- 
tion, without his special leave. All emigrant lords were sum- 
moned, and their property confiscated for non-appearance. At 
length, when, by the departure of Philip's sister the Duchess of 
Parma, Alva was left uncontrolled, the people were driven by 
frenzy to become banditti and pirates, till the land was deso- 
lated with carnage and ruin. Alva himself boasted that his 
executioners had put to death 18,000 Netherlanders. 

It is not possible here to detail, how William of Nassau, 
prince of Orange, from small beginnings, rallied his unhappy 
countrymen. The struggle became horrible. The Netherlanders 
were not united, or their success would have been earlier. The 
Catholics were roused chiefly by Alva's illegal taxation, but were 



NETHERLANDS. 29 

often thrown back on to the side of Spain by dread of the in- 
tense Protestantism which his cruelties had evoked. When 
Haerlem had revolted, the Spaniards lost 10,000 men in the 
siege, and seven months of time; arid on capturing it by famine, 
butchered or drowned 2000 men of the garrison. Reprisals 
naturally followed. Resistance became more stubborn than ever, 
and at last, in 1573, Philip recalled Alva, proclaimed an amnesty, 
and expected submission. 

It was too late. To trust him was impossible, and two more 
years of horror followed ; but when in 1575 the mild and tolerant 
Emperor Maximilian II. attempted mediation with his cousin, 
Philip's deputies, after gaining three months time by pretended 
deliberations, refused any toleration for Protestants, and the 
war recommenced with implacable violence. The royal troops 
openly revolted. On the 3rd of November, 1576, Antwerp was 
sacked and burnt by Spanish mutineers. For three days, carnage 
and pillage went on. More than 500 private mansions were 
burnt; 7000 citizens perished by sword, water, or fire. The 
Government at last, ashamed and horrified at the danger to 
which it was itself exposed from its own troops, proscribed 
the mutineers and called on all loyal subjects to aid in destroy- 
ing them. It summoned the States General; which (the viceroy 
having died suddenly) assumed command in the name of the 
King, and the Pacification or Ghent followed, by which 
Liberty and the Constitution appeared to be regained. One 
of the articles of this treaty was, the expulsion of all Spanish sol- 
diers and other foreigners. 

Philip's new representative, Don John of Austria, affected at 
first the greatest moderation, and confirmed the pacification ; but 
instantly proceeded to undermine it by treachery. His uncon- 
stitutional claims first gave alarm ; next, his letters to Philip, 
intercepted and published by the King of Prance, made notorious 
the usual perfidy of the House of Hapsburg. In consequence, 
the civil war revived in 1578, with new carnage. Even the 
Emperor Rudolf II. and the Pope were horrified, and offered 
mediation ; but as Philip obstinately refused toleration of here- 
tics, reconciliation was impossible. The Prince of Orange had 
already formed on Jan. 29th, 1579, the famous Union of Utrecht, 
in which five Protestant Princes cemented themselves indisso- 
lubly ; but without alluding to Philip. But the next year, on 
Sept. 29th, after Philip's final refusal of toleration, the Estates 
of the United Provinces renounced the sovereignty of Spain, 
and virtually commenced the Dutch Eepublic. 

Philip's revenge, was, to issue a ban against the Prince of 



30 NETHERLANDS. 

Orange, in which he " proscribes him as a public pest," and 
promises to whoever will deliver him up, dead or alive , " in 
lands or money, at his choice, — the sum of 25,000 golden 
crowns ; — to grant a free pardon to such person for all former 
offences of what kind soever ; — and to invest him with letters 
patent of Nobility." This was published on the 15th 
June. 

He had calculated rightly. A first assassin sent a pistol 
bullet through the Prince's face from side to side, and was 
instantly killed by the guards. The papers found on him, and 
evidence there elicited, proved that he held a bond from Philip 
for 28,000 ducats and other advantages, in case of his crime 
being successful. But the Prince recovered. A second assassin, 
in 1584, sent three balls into his body, and killed him almost on 
the spot. This man was a fanatical Catholic. By his own 
avowal he had received, not absolution only, but encouragement 
from ministers of his church, and an original letter is extant 
from the Prince of Parma to Philip, in which the Prince declares 
himself an accomplice in the deed. Philip was suspected by his 
contemporaries to have afterwards poisoned this very Prince of 
Parma, as previously his brother Don John of Austria. Such 
tales can seldom be tested; but their currency is a dreadful 
proof of the morality then known to exist in the Imperial Court. 
— The children of William's assassin received the money and 
rewards which Philip had promised. 

The crime of political assassination is common to all despotic 
oligarchies, whether called monarchical or aristocratic ; but in 
modern European History, no dynasty is more stained with it 
than the Austrian. No sooner did Austria obtain her first foot- 
ing in Hungary, than the Court assassinated, first the Italian 
Gritti, and next the Hungarian Cardinal Martinuzzi ; although 
to the latter, Ferdinand I. was indebted for the sovereignty of 
Eastern Hungary and for the celebrated crown of St. Stephen. 
The Cardinal's ear, remarkable for a tuft of hair, was sent to 
Eerdinand by the assassin, in proof of his fidelity. — The second 
Eerdinand in like manner, having twice owed his safety and 
crown in the Thirty Years' War to the talents of his general 
Waldstein, was so irritated at that great man's advocating (on 
purely political grounds) some humanity towards Protestants, 
that he suspected him of treason, dishonoured him, and when the 
effects of this orythe army were feared, assassinated him. The 
Court published a manifesto, justifying the deed, and executed 
many other persons, in pretence that a great conspiracy was to 
be quelled. Down even to recent times there is too full ground to 



NETHERLANDS. 31 

believe that this atrocious mode of proceeding has been pursued, 
against no less signal a victim than the Archduke Alexander, 
palatine of Hungary. This prince was blown up in his summer- 
house by fireworks, in 1795; being at that time notoriously 
under the displeasure of his brother, the young Emperor Francis, 
because of his avowed determination to respect the Hungarian 
Constitution, to which he had made oath. 

On the deposition of Philip, the Duke of Anjou was elected 
Protector of the Netherlands and duke of Brabant, Lothier, 
Limbourg, and Gruelders. He consented to recognize William 
as sovereign in Holland and Zealand, and as lord of Friesland, 
though under homage to the Duke of Anjou. But the new 
protector was presently discontented with his limited powers, 
and conspired with his French officers against the liberty of the 
Flemings. He attempted to seize the principal towns by a 
coup-de-main, but succeeded only at Dunkirk and Termonde. 
He assaulted Antwerp in person, and was repulsed with dis- 
graceful loss. So terminated his career in the Netherlands, 
before the murder of the Prince of Orange, whose career was 
cut short before he could sign the Capitulation by which the 
Estates would have recognized him as their independent sove- 
reign. 

The Prince of Parma renewed the war in the name of Philip, 
and within a year had reconquered what we now call Belgium, 
The depopulation of the country was fearful. Hundreds of vil- 
lages had been abandoned to the wolves. Packs of dogs, run 
wild, hunted down brutes and men. Fields, woods, roads, were 
frequently undistinguishable ; for trees, weeds, and grass were 
mingled confusedly. 

On the other hand, Holland gathered up all its energies, 
and prepared anew for war : nevertheless Antwerp was taken 
after a siege of 14 months. The Dutch got succour from our 
Elizabeth, which did them little direct service ; although, by 
diverting Philip's anger against England and engaging him to 
send the celebrated Armada to invade us, it exhausted the 
energies of Spain. Immediately after, Philip implicated himself 
in the civil war of France, to keep down the " twice-lapsed 
heretic " Henry of Navarre. Meanwhile, Prince Maurice of 
Orange made full use of the time thus gained. The English 
fleets pressed hard upon Spain. Philip was declining in years, 
health, and spirits, and Holland at last recovered itself. It has 
since remained independent : but the Spaniards continued their 
warlike efforts with great obstinacy, bloodshed, and desolation, 
after the death of Philip, until 1607 ; when, after two years' 



32 BELGIUM. 

negotiation, a truce for 12 years was arranged on the 9th of 
April, 1609, under the guarantee of Prance and England. 

So at last ended the hostilities of the House of Austria against 
their own people in the Netherlands, who escaped the usual 
slavery which that House inflicts, only by so powerful a diver- 
sion as that of England and Erance. 



IX.— BELGIUM. 



The result of the Eorty Years' War was to separate the his- 
tory of Belgium from that of Holland. Philip, a little before his 
death, gave his daughter Isabella in marriage to the Archduke 
Albert, brother of the Emperor Eudolf, and with her as dowry 
the kingdom of the Netherlands. Albert got and 'kept the 
southern provinces, but could not reconquer the Dutch Bepublic. 
Thus Belgium remained under the House of Austria. It re- 
verted to the Spanish branch by the death of Isabella without 
children, and remained as the Spanish Netherlands until the 
peace of Utrecht, in 1713, when, theBourbon dynasty having fixed 
itself in Spain, Belgium was recognized as properly Austrian. In 
this interval Belgium had suffered far less by wars than Holland, 
and its governors had learned by the proximity of Holland the 
danger of drawing the reins too tight. The Empress Maria 
Theresa was also very popular in Belgium; but her son the 
Emperor Joseph, of Hapsburg-Lorraine, aiming at beneficial 
results by lawless means, tried to rule despotically by Edicts, 
and roused at once the bigotry and the free spirit of the Belgians. 
Insurrection followed, and in 1790 seven revolted provinces de- 
clared the House of Austria to have forfeited its sovereignty, 
and assumed the title of the United Belgian States. 

Belgium on this occasion had acted with a precipitation and 
excitement beyond all previous precedent ; nor do we for a moment 
compare the grievances inflicted on them by Joseph II. to that 
which Holland, Bohemia, Castile, Aragon, Germany, Hungary, 
had endured from sovereigns of this House without actually dis- 
owning its sway. But it is certainly remarkable to see the des- 
potic tendency so inveterate in this family, that Joseph, a man of 
genius and of excellent intentions, stirred up civil war in both 
Belgium and Hungary by his violent mode of proceeding. 



PROTESTANTS AND MOORS OF SPAIN, 33 



X.— PEOTESTANTS AND MOOES OE SPAIN. 

The account already given of Philip II. 's behaviour to Protes- 
tants in the Netherlands, will enable the reader to infer how he 
was likely to deal in Spain, and we may speak of that more 
briefly. Philip's return to his native land, in 1559, was cele- 
brated by a vast number of Acts of Faith, as the surrender of 
heretics to be burnt by the Inquisition was named. On a single 
day, it was believed, from two to three thousand persons in all 
parts of Spain were simultaneously arrested, and disappeared 
for ever ; it being generally uncertain whether they were killed 
or in prison. The nature of the despotism makes it impossible 
to get authentic details ; but the archives of the " Holy Office," 
which have been brought to light in this century, furnish the fol- 
lowing result : — 

The total amount of persons executed' by the Inquisition 
in Spain alone, during the three centuries of its existence there, 
is 32,000 persons burnt, and 291,000 condemned to perpetual 
imprisonment, the galleys, or other penalties. 

But we pass from Protestants to Moors. Philip first disarmed 
the Moors, as a precaution. He next forbade them to speak 
the Moorish language, or continue anything of a Mohammedan 
exterior : especially their women were ordered to show their 
faces in public unveiled. The Moors, chiefly of Granada, betook 
themselves to petitions, remonstrances, and protestations of 
loyalty ; but Philip was obstinate, and drove them into rebellion. 
Don John of Austria at length subdued the revolt ; upon which 
Philip sold the prisoners for slaves, and dispersed the rest of the 
Moors into the old provinces of Spain. None remained congre- 
gated or in their original seats, but the Moors of Valencia, who 
had not joined in the insurrection, and who were protected by 
the nobles of Valencia, as valuable vassals. 

But they were not to remain unmolested. In the next cen- 
tury Philip III. listened to the Archbishop of Valencia, who 
complained that the skill, industry, and frugality of the Valencian 
Moors enabled them to live and thrive and monopolize commerce 
and wealth ; as a remedy for which, he advised to sell into 
foreign slavery all who were above seven years of age, and educate 
the children as real Christians. The landlords of Valencia 
warmly defended their vassals, but the determination of the 
Court was fixed ; and no sooner was the truce with Holland 
signed, in 1609, than preparations were made for expelling the 
whole body. In vain did the Valencian nobles implore and. 

c3 



34 PROTESTANTS AND MOORS OF SPAIN. 

protest ; the fatal edict came forth. Only six families in every 
hundred were allowed to be temporarily retained by such nobles, 
in order to instruct their Christian successors how to manage 
drains, aqueducts, rice grounds, sugarworks,and other businesses ; 
and besides these, children under four years of age might remain. 
But the Moors in indignation refused to leave their children or 
to instruct the Christians in their arts. 

The first band of exiles, about 20,000, reached Africa safely, 
and were kindly received ; but various calamities fell on the rest. 
Many were shipwrecked, many robbed and murdered by their 
crews, many were slain when landed on the Barbary coast. It 
is computed that 100,000 perished in some of these modes. In 
Spain about 30,000 had escaped to the mountains. War was 
made on these, and they were quickly subdued. Three thousand 
were forthwith put to death, the children under seven years of age 
were given as prize money for the soldiers to sell, and the rest 
were transported to Africa. All these horrors were perpetrated 
on dutiful, valuable subjects, who were not even pretended 
to have committed any crime, who professed the Catholic religion 
at the order of the Court, — and whose sole offences were, that 
they were of a different race, and were particularly industrious 
and intelligent. 

But this was not all. The transportation had been very ex- 
pensive ; Philip therefore taxed all the remaining Moors until he 
had got enough to pay the expense of transporting them also ; 
and then he finished his work. Some few Moors were supposed 
to have concealed themselves, and a prize therefore was set on 
their heads, as if they had been wolves. In this way did Philip 
in the course of a few months expel at least a million of in- 
dustrious, ingenious, innocent, loyal subjects. 

When such were the proceedings of the House of Austria to- 
wards Spain, we cahnot wonder that Spain has been on the de- 
cline for more than three centuries. Her decline may be dated 
in fact from the day when Charles of Ghent, their first sovereign 
of that House, made war on the constitution of Castile ; though 
the impulse to prosperity which the old free institutions had 
given, disguised for a generation the insidious mischief of des- 
potism. The decay was manifested before Philip II. was dead ; 
and ruin is hardly too strong a word for the state of things 
which Philip III. induced. 



AUSTRIAN POLAND. 35 



XI.— AUSTRIAN POLAND. 

The greatest crime of the eighteenth century was the partition 
of Poland, by the joint force of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, 
with the aid of a weak king who had been forced on to the 
throne of Poland by the intrigues and violence of Russia. In 
this infamous plot the religious Empress-Queen Maria Theresa 
would at first take no part ; but at length, on finding that to 
oppose it was Quixotic, while to be neutral was to incur guilt 
and lose its payment, she became an eager partner to the con- 
spiracy, and claimed Polish Gralicia as part qf the kingdom of 
Hungary, to which it once belonged. 

Yet in fact, after conquering it by force, she held it by force, 
and did not reunite it to Hungary, nor impart to it any of the 
Hungarian freedom. It might be wrong to speak of the House 
of Hapsburg as violating any express engagements, oaths, or 
treaties, with their Galician subjects ; who appear, from the day 
of the conquest, to have been pressed down under pure military 
domination. Reciprocally, however, since no moral union has 
arisen between these Poles and the House of Austria, they are 
surely justified in shaking off such a yoke whenever they are 
able. 

The miseries of Poland rose out of the fact that the com- 
monalty was enthralled to a caste of military nobles ; and all 
attempts at reform were embarrassed by the intrigues and violence 
of Russia, who extorted a treaty, which, under the name of pro- 
tecting the rights of the republic, gave her a pretext to forbid 
their reforming the injustices of their own institutions. Gali- 
cia partook in this misery. Indeed the commonalty are largely 
of a different race, called Ruthenians ; who have no happy and 
patriotic traditions concerning the ancient Polish freedom. The 
Polish nobility has long understood the evil and danger hence 
arising ; but since Austria, as a fixed part of her policy, keeps 
up enmities between the different races and classes in her em- 
pire, it has been impossible for the Polish nobles to destroy 
offensive feudalism, unless they could first get rid of Austrian 
interference. 

In the year 1846 a conspiracy was formed, the nature and 
extent of which is differently represented. Some call it a com- 
munistic scheme originating in Cracow, — supposed to have been 
got up by Austrian spies, — and highly offensive to the landed 
proprietors of Galicia. Others say that it was really an exten- 



86 AUSTRIAN POLAND. 

sive plan for renewing Polish independence, in which the land- 
holders were largely concerned, and that the Austrian Govern- 
ment had gained a certain knowledge of it.* The latter account 
appears by far the more probable : but, whatever the cause, the 
acts of the Austrians are not doubtful. They sent agents among 
the Euthenian peasantry, to spread abroad the tale that Austria 
had for three years abolished forced labour, but that the nobility 
continued to enforce it, and were contemplating a massacre of 
the peasants : in turn the Government offered them headmoney 
for the wholesale slaughter of their nobility. The bribe was 
successful. Without the trouble of a war Prince Metternich's 
cabinet procured the assassination of all the principal men who 
were (or were believed to be) planning revolution ; and paid the 
price of blood openly to the assassins. To obtain accurate de- 
tails is of course difficult, when the accounts given by the suf- 
fering class are derided as ex parte statements, and the dynasty 
is wise enough to remain wholly silent. It has, however, been 
stated publicly and without contradiction, that the Austrian 
ministry entrusted the management of this butchery to Szela, a 
man who was in prison for setting lire to his father's house, and 
for another horrible crime. He was set at liberty with other con- 
victs ; and disguised soldiers were put under his command. Ten 
shillings were offered for bringing in a nobleman dead, and five 
shillings for one alive. A list which was made out, of the per- 
sons massacred, contained "1484 names ; but it is uncertain whe- 
ther this was complete. Females and children were among the 
murdered, and an Englishman, by name Pox. 

Thus to the middle of the nineteenth century, even w 7 hen not 
inflamed by religious bigotry, the House of Hapsburg nourishes 
enmity, cupidity, and ferocious murder, rather than allow a 
foreign people to escape from its yoke, — a people conquered by 
its lawless conspiracy, — a people which has never owed to it any 
allegiance. Even supposing that to endeavour to escape from 
such a yoke were in itself a moral treason, deserving of death, yet 
the atrocity of confounding innocent and guilty by the general 
proscription of a whole order of men, — the atrocity of demo- 
ralizing a whole peasantry by holding out a pecuniary bribe to 
assassination, — is a form of wickedness, on which it does not 
appear that Eussia has yet ventured ; a form of wickedness, 
which perhaps is not to be paralleled in the annals of modern 
Europe, except in the proceedings of the same dynasty under 

* A dispatch of Metternich avows that the Government knew of the 
conspiracy, and purposely did not check it, in order to cut off all the 
Hydra's heads at one blow. 



AUSTRIAN POLAND. 37 

Rudolf II., as narrated above, and again in 1848 against Hun- 
gary. 

It is not unimportant, to contrast the measure dealt out to 
dynasties and to peoples by the public men and journalists of 
England. When questions were put in our Parliament con- 
cerning the Galician massacres, the Queen's ministry replied in 
uncertain phrases of general incredulity ; in consequence of 
which our journalists chose to treat the whole as a silly story 
hastily believed by an English nobleman whose name is indis- 
solubly associated with sympathy for oppressed Poland. Time 
passed on, and other subjects filled the public interest : in con- 
sequence few of us to this day are aware that the guilt of the 
Austrian Government in Galicia is a horrible reality. We need 
not ask, what would have been said, if such a massacre had been 
perpetrated voluntarily by the peasants, or had been stimulated 
by a republican faction. We need not refer to hypothesis, or 
step back to the September massacres of the first Erench revo- 
lutions; for we can refer to recent fact. In 1848 three men 
were killed by exasperated multitudes, Count Latour in Vienna, 
Count Lamberg in Pest, Count Eossi in Rome. What was the 
guilt of Rossi according to Roman law, must here be left doubt- 
ful : certain it is, that the populace and liberal party of Rome 
believed him to be morally guilty of high treason against law 
and liberty. Latour was a high criminal, undeserving of mercy 
before any just tribunal. He had secretly stimulated rebels and 
robbers to invade Hungary, to burn the villages, to slaughter 
and torture the people. He had publicly on his word of ho- 
nour disowned Jellachich, to whom he was privately sending 
ammunition, money, officers, and orders. As Austrian minister 
of war, he had given secret instructions to the Austrian officers 
in the Hungarian army, to fight feebly against the Serbian, ma- 
rauders, and rather to sacrifice the lives of their troops than gain 
any decisive advantage over the murderous enemy. Latour' s 
treachery was come to light, and all Yienna knew it. He had 
ordered the German armies to march against Hungary, when 
the news arrived that his protege Jellachich was on the march 
against Yienna. The Yiennese populace discerned that he was 
attempting to crush the liberties of Hungary by German, and of 
Yienna by Croatian, levies; they rose infuriated, and hanged 
Latour in the street. A third slaughter was that of the Hun- 
garian Count Lamberg, who at the mission of the Austrian 
dynasty accepted the unlawful and treasonable duty of becoming 
military dictator of Hungary, to put himself at the head of the 
volunteers who were assembling to repel Jellachich. The popu- 



38 HUNGARY. 

lace of Pest, discerning that this was a new attempt to play into 
the hand of the public enemy, killed Lamberg on his way to 
occupy the fortress of Buda. 

Because Bossi was stabbed in Bome, therefore, Boman liber- 
ties are to be annihilated, and a temporal Papacy to be kept on 
the shoulders of the Bomans by the aid of foreign armies. 
Because Latour was hanged in Yienna, that city is to be bom- 
barded, its citizens butchered in heaps, and the constitution, to 
which the Emperor had given solemn assent, is to be ignored. 
Because Lamberg was slain on the bridge of Buda Pest, all 
Hungary is to be laid waste by Eusso- Austrian power, its ancient 
law prostrate, its indisputable rights exploded. Such is the logic 
of leading journalists and of our stock-exchange : is it possible to 
believe it to be that of the Queen's ministry also ? 

Even after the mmsacres of Galicia to ere perfectly well known, 
not one court in Europe protested against them, not one royal 
or diplomatic person withdrew from amity and courtesy with the 
murderers. If " Eed " republicans in the crudeness of passion 
kill a few eminently guilty men who cannot be reached by form 
of law, our respectable classes and our statesmen shudder at 
popular wickedness, and look on it as a justification of any 
amount of royal violence. But if an Austrian cabinet arms 
nightly assassins to butcher families in their homes, the news is 
first denied and derided, then prudently hushed up ; finally our 
ministry avow that whatever weakens the Austrian dynasty would 
be a European calamity. 



XII.— HUNGABY. 

Under this word a vast subject remains, which must be too 
summarily treated. 

Castile and Aragon lost their liberties by a single campaign, 
so entirely were they surrounded by the overwhelming force of 
their legal guardian. Bohemia, though hemmed in between Ger- 
many and Hungary, was overpowered not at one effort, but by 
tw T o wars. But Hungary, on the eastern frontier of Christendom, 
with the fortress land of Transylvania and the marshes of the 
Teiss as its defence, struggled for three centuries against the 
perfidious dynasty. To tell all its crimes in these few pages is 
impossible. 

Ferdinand of Austria was freely elected king of Hungary in 



HUNGARY. 39 

1526-7; and from that date to 1826-7 he and his royal de- 
scendants perpetually broke the Coronation Oath on many most 
cardinal points. To use the recent words of Count Teleki, all 
the sovereigns of this dynasty have been perjured, except Leo- 
pold II, who reigned only 18 months, and Joseph II., who, in 
order to evade the oath, refused to be crowned, and thereby 
made himself a foreign usurper and not a legitimate king. All 
his acts were for this reason declared invalid by himself on his 
deathbed. 

The pertinacious breaches of the Coronation Oath, were prin- 
cipally the following ; 1. protracted non-residence in Hungary. 
Against the positive words of the law, all the kings of this line 
were permanent absentees, and most of them never lived a week 
on Hungarian soil. Unfaithfulness on this point is that which 
estranged them, and eminently led to all their other offences. 
2. The appointing of foreigners to civil and military office. 
This has been done flagrantly and perpetually, in spite of per- 
petual remonstrance. 3. Introducing of foreign troops, making 
public treaties , and declaring war, without leave of the Diet. 4. 
Neglecting to summon the Diet once in every three years at least. 
5. Oppression of the Protestants, against specific treaties. 

This violation of law and oaths was carried out in admi- 
nistrative details in a great variety of instances, even at the best 
time ; nevertheless the fortune of Hungary has been; very dif- 
ferent under different kings ; and we proceed to mark out the 
general distinctions. 

The three hundred years, from 1526 to 1826, is divisible into 
two periods at 1712, which is the year of the peace of Satmar. 
The first period, from 1526 to 1712, is one of civil war against 
the kings so frequent as to be almost unceasing. The suffer- 
ings from foreign soldiery were great, even in peace, from the 
beginning of the Austrian sway : horrible desolation followed 
under Eudolf II., a pupil of the Jesuits, and continued as long 
as Jesuits had the educating of the Austrian princes. In this 
long period of 186 years the liberties of Hungary were saved 
by a twofold support, — first, by great princes of Transylvania, 
men of genius and wisdom, as well as of unchanging reso- 
lution ; — secondly, by the Turks ; who, though hostile to Hun- 
gary as Christian, were soon discovered to be far milder masters 
than the House of Hapsburg. — In the beginning of those times 
fifteen-sixteenths of the Magyars were Protestant. The Turks 
did not interfere with their religion: Rudolf II. and Ferdi- 
nand II. tried to murder every Protestant whom they could not 
convert. — The Turks did not interfere with local self-°;ovem- 



40 HUNGARY. 

ment, but were satisfied with moderate tribute and nominal 
homage : the Austrians could be satisfied with nothing short of 
rooting out all the institutions of Hungary, local as well as reli- 
gious. — The Turks observe treaties as faithfully as any nation of 
Christendom : the Austrians in that whole period never observed 
the treaties by which again and again and again they made peace 
with Hungary. Yet the English apologists of Austria* talk of 
her as having saved Hungary from the Turkish yoke ! 

Besides the aid from the Transylvanian princes and the Turks, 
the Hungarians had relief in the attacks made on Austria by the 
French power. The victories of Blenheim and Eamilies went 
far to seal the doom of Hungary under the feet of Austria. 
But the Jesuits had fallen into disgrace, and the heir apparent 
of the Hapsburgs had been educated under other tuition. For 
the first time the Hungarians experienced generous treatment 
from that House, under Joseph I. who, preferring a loyal people 
to one conquered, crushed and resisting, madef with them the 
celebrated peace of Satmar, which confirmed their ancient law and 
liberties, and gave to his dynasty the loyal obedience of the 
Hungarians for another full century. This peace was negotiated 
with the cognizance and by the mediation of an English and of 
a Dutch Ambassador. 

It may be here proper to indicate what are the proofs of this 
fact, since an English Foreign Minister has recently avowed that 
England knoivs nothing of Hungary hut as part of the Austrian 
Empire. In Archdeacon Coxe's History of the House of Austria, 
ch. 79, which treats of the years from 1705 to 1711, we read: — 
"Joseph I. redoubled his efforts to pacify the insurgents [i.e. 
the Hungarian nation]. He opened a new negotiation through 
the intervention of the English and Butch ministers, at Tirnau, 
&c." No farther details appear in Coxe, but in Dr. J. A. Eess- 
ler's German History of Hungary, vol. 9, p. 584, and in Prince 
Eakotzy's Histoire des Revolutions en Hongrie, vol. 2, pp. 341- 
346, we find the following facts. The preliminaries for the peace, 
as Coxe states, began at Tirnau (or Nagy Szombat), which was in 
1705 ; on the 13th October the conferences were opened be- 
tween Count Wratislaw (chancellor of Bohemia) and Archbishop 
Paul Szechenyi, as representatives of the Emperor Joseph I. and 

* Tn fact, the deplorable misgovernment of Hungary by Austria almost 
led to the conquest of both countries by the Turks. Vienna was saved from 
them, only by Sobiesky, king of Poland, a.d. 1683, who thereby enabled 
Leopold I. to inflict horrible miseries on Hungary. The " Bloody Shambles" 
of Eperies were held in 1687. 

f The treaty was not actually signed till after the death of Joseph. 



HUNGARY. 41 

the Counts Bercsenyi and Csaky as delegates of the Hungarian 
" Confederation/' as the provisional Government of Hungary 
called itself. Coxe has explained its organization. All the peers, 
prelates, and representatives of the counties and cities of insur- 
gent Hungary assembled in Diet at Szecseny, and after religious 
ceremonies from the Archbishop of Gran, instituted a Confederacy 
similar to that of Poland. The administration was confided to 
a Senate of 24 members, Kakotzy was elected Leader and ele- 
vated on a buckler by the principal peers : after which an oath 
of fidelity was taken, and a vow not to conclude peace until 
their ancient rights were restored. As Mediator at the Con- 
ference, the English Government sent the Earl of Sunderland, 
then ambassador, to the Emperor, and Sir George Stepney, the 
secretary to the embassy ; also the Dutch Government sent their 
ambassador Baron Eechteren, and Heer Hamel Bruyninx. It 
deserves particular remark, that the Confederation objected to 
the credentials of the Earl of Sunderland, as implying censure 
of the irfsurgent Hungarians ; since in them Queen Anne as- 
signed as a reason for her mediation her wish to stop farther 
bloodshed in an inglorious struggle. The credentials were ac- 
cordingly altered by the English Government, which finally 
assumed a place as mediating between two independent powers. 
The negotiations continued for five or six years. When they 
had been broken off, in the winter of 1705-6, the Mediators 
took the initiative themselves, in a note of Jan. 15th, 1706, to 
exhort the Emperor and the Confederation to renew the nego- 
tiation. In conclusion the Mediators did not indeed pretend to 
guarantee the Hungarian constitution : being Maritime Powers, 
this was not desired of them. But undoubtedly they had full 
official cognizance of the terms of the reconciliation; — they 
knew that the Emperor submitted to recognize the whole ancient 
constitution of Hungary, and all its laws passed with legitimate 
formalities ; and they have been perfectly aware that the House 
of Austria cannot violate the treaty of Satmar, without de- 
throning itself in Hungary, and putting the English Government 
in the same position towards insurgent Hungary now, as it was 
in 1705-12. 

In 1687 the Hungarian Diet (under military compulsion, it 
seems) had voted to make the crown hereditary in the male line ; 
and this was not disturbed by the peace of Satmar. But the 
heir of the crown still was not king until he had been legiti- 
mately crowned, which implied his first taking the Coronation 
Oath. Besides this, ever since 1622, the Hungarians have 
forced their kings, prior to coronation, to execute a Charter, or, 



42 HUNGARY. 

as it is called, an Inaugural Diploma, (a document in some respect 
similar to the Bohemian Reversal^) which was a personal cove- 
nant of every king with the nation. Yet neither has this had 
any effect. Maria Theresa saved her kingdoms from a conspiracy 
of the great powers, by the zealous enthusiasm of the Hun- 
garians, in 1741, yet she too was false. In her long reign she 
summoned the Diet but three times, and, against oath, ruled by 
Edicts. She renewed a solemn law, that the ministers of state 
both for internal and for foreign affairs should be Hungarians ; 
but she made her Hungarian ministry a sham and a blind, and 
ruled by means of her Austrian cabinet. This Queen subtly 
undermined and corrupted Hungarian self-government and Hun- 
garian religion : her whole policy was directed to evade the law, 
where she did not dare openly to defy it. Her son Joseph II. 
went further. He refused to take the Coronation Oath, and 
usurped power without that solemn engagement. He suppressed 
the municipalities and county institutions of Hungary, and 
introduced a centralized system of paid German officials, of 
course by means of foreign troops. When at last the much- 
enduring Hungarians rose to resist usurpations so undisguised, 
Joseph did not dare to persevere, since in Belgium and against 
Turkey he was alike unprosperous. On his deathbed, in 1790, 
he retracted all his offensive ordinances. His brother Leopold 
II. pacified the nation by solemn renewals of the Constitution 
with additional guarantees.* His wise administration during a 
short reign of 18 months roused enthusiasm for the Crown, 
and effectually dissipated all jealousy of its encroachments. 

But Leopold was suddenly cut off, as is not doubted, by 
domestic poison, and as the Hungarians have suspected, — in 
order to introduce the old imperial policy. His young son 
Francis, under evil guidance, and terrified by the scenes of re- 
publican Paris, soon recommenced illegal arrests, illegal sen- 
tences, and cruel executions. Yet Hungary nobly supported 
him against France. But when the Diet, in 1807, inveighed 

* The constitutional laws to which Leopold gave consent, were virtually 
a renewal of solemn treaty between the nation and the dynasty. Among 
others : " Hungary, with its appanages, is a free and independent kingdom, 
that is, compromised with no other kingdom or people, and to be governed by 
its hereditary king, when legitimately crowned, after its own peculiar laws 
and customs, and not after the fashion of the other provinces." Also : " His 
Majesty will call in Hungarians to the very Ministry of State, and will treat 
of internal affairs by means of Hungarians, and foreign affairs with an ad- 
mixture of Hungarians." Also : " No taxes or service shall be levied with- 
out permission of the Diet, except during foreign invasion. Diets shall be 
held at least once in three years." 



HUNGARY. 43 

against maladministration of the finances, and moved in favour 
of Free Trade, — and again, in 1812, protested against the 
Austrian State-Bankruptcy, — Francis resolved to get rid of the 
constitution. The war came to an end, and he summoned no 
more Diets until compelled, after 13 years' interval. Meanwhile, 
he had done or attempted numerous illegalities, especially that 
of raising men and money by his edict. In 1824 he became terri- 
fied by the aspect of things, and in 1825 a Diet was summoned; 
and in this one respect the law was thenceforward observed until 
1848. In consequence, that was a period of legal warfare by 
open constitutional means for the destruction of the many ille- 
galities in which the Court still persisted. In fact, a large part 
of the duty of the Diet still consisted in opposing encroachments 
of the prerogative, and complaining that the law was not en- 
forced by the ministry. This was in itself a great hindrance to 
internal reform, by occupying time and energy. But besides, 
it was the craft of the Crown to impede all reform which would 
content the un-Magyar population and cement them into a single 
nationality. By Edicts, now and then, good measures were 
sought to be enforced : then the Diets and Aristocracy and 
County Assemblies had either to submit to a precedent highly 
dangerous to constitutional liberty, or to expose themselves to 
the imputation of being hostile to all reform. Even smaller 
improvements of the law were thwarted or vetoed by the Crown, 
unless the Diet were willing to purchase them by assenting to 
some evil principle. Thus at quite a recent period a veto was 
put on a bill for expediting the adjudicature of commercial 
transactions, unless the judges were made mere nominees of the 
Crown, without any of their usual responsibility. Nor was it 
possible for the "nobiles,"* or patricians, to tax themselves for 
roads, bridges, and other material improvements ; for every such 
bill was thwarted by the Crown insisting that all the proceeds 
of the new taxes should be made over to it irresponsibly : and 
the Hungarians had proof in their vast Crown Estates, (which 
were all unprofitable in Austrian hands,) that to vote money to 
the Crown was useless. The Austrian ministry used the Crown 
Estates of Hungary as a job of patronage for themselves ; re- 
proached the Hungarians for the backward state of their country; 
refused to allow its improvement, unless they (a purely foreign 
body) had the doing of it ; and lastly, by their scribes and jour- 

* The "nobiles" were a class who paid no direct taxes, but were liable 
to personal service in war. These must not be confounded with the " mag- 
nates," or peers. 



44 HUNGARY. 

nalists did not cease to poison the mind of Europe with the 
idea of Hungarian " barbarism." 

A. series of valuable laws were prepared by the Opposition in 
the autumn of 1847; and several of them had been carried, 
when the French Eepublic broke ou the world in Feb. 1848. 
The Hungarians immediately feared a new war of the despotic 
powers against France, and a recurrence of their old miseries ; — 
the Crown ruling without Diets, and excusing itself by its pre- 
tended privilege to raise troops and taxes when there was danger 
of invasion. All felt that an onward move was essential, to 
secure their hereditary laws. 

The timid Conservatives of the Diet, who desired the same 
measures as the Opposition, but, from long experience of the 
desperate atrocity of the Court, feared to press it too hard, now 
felt sure that the dynasty would give way to their just demands. 
The Galician massacres had exceedingly terrified the selfish part 
of the great proprietors, and made all to feel the extreme 
importance of terminating feudal quarrels. In consequence, 
the whole Diet came over to the side of the Opposition, and 
Batthyanyi and Kossuth found themselves leaders of a united 
nation. Kossuth proposed a petition to the king, which was 
carried unanimously, to restore that political condition which 
had subsisted when Hungary elected its first king of the House 
of Hapsburg, viz. by re-establishing parliamentary power in the 
other kingdoms — Bohemia and Vienna. All felt that the ex- 
tinction of liberty in them was the permanent cause of mischief 
to Hungary ; and a large deputation from both Chambers carried 
the petition to Vienna, where an unforeseen result quickened the 
deliberations of the Court. The Viennese took heart at the 
events of Paris and the debates in Hungary, and made insurrec- 
tion : the same had also taken place in Italy : the tottering 
dynasty gladly crept beneath the shadow of Kossuth, and gave 
solemn assent to the splendid series of legislative and adminis- 
trative reforms. 

But while making oath to Hungary, the royal 'House was 
plotting to break the oath; and betook themselves as in Galicia 
to ferocious craft. Agents were sent to stimulate the Serbs to 
make murderous inroads into Hungary. Jellachich was made 
Governor of Croatia before Batthyanyi had received the formal in- 
vestment as premier, and then it was pretended that Batthyanyi' s 
concurrence was not needed. Jellachich preached French repub- 
licanism, stirred up the Croats to rebel, used military terrorism 
to pack the Croatian provincial Assembly with men hostile to 
Hungary, and raised an army to march against the Hungarian 



HUNGARY. 45 

capital. It was for some time a mystery why the Hungarian 
troops were so very ill led against the murderous Serbs : this 
was afterwards explained, when they found the Serbs to be under 
the command of Austrian officers, with the Emperor's commis- 
sion. On July 2nd the Palatine Archduke Stephen opened 
the new Diet in the King's name ; denounced the Serbian and 
Croatian movements as revolts, and exhorted the Diet to take 
active measures for suppressing them. With the least possible 
delay they voted bills for raising money and troops; but after 
two months had been spent in various ways, the King put his 
veto on the bills, without assigning any reason, though a deputa- 
tion of 100 members of the Diet went to Vienna to implore his 
assent. It was already manifest to all that the Court was 
perfidious. The generals in the Hungarian army had been 
tampered with to tight feebly against the Serbs. Jellachich, 
who had been proclaimed a rebel, was now declared to have 
" proved his unalterable fidelity to the House of Hapsburg ; " 
finally, his despatches to Latour were intercepted, which revealed 
everything even to the populace of Yienna. 

When dangers so extreme surrounded Hungary, — when her 
trained troops were nearly all abroad, and her generals (reared 
in Austrian service) proved treacherous, — when the heart of 
Batthyanyi failed, and all feared the fate of Bohemia, — one 
man saved the honour of Hungary, and with her honour her 
whole future. Kossuth called the people to arms. Volunteers 
assembled, defeated Jellachich, captured his rearguard of 10,000 
men, with stores and ammunition ; raised Hungary into enthu- 
siasm, but drove the perjured Hapsburgs into still more head- 
long courses. 

On the arrival of the news, orders were sent to the Austrian 
forces to invade Hungary from all sides. A royal rescript was 
signed by Ferdinand on October 3rd which dissolved the Diet, 
forbade all action of the municipalities, superseded all tribunals 
by martial law, and made Jellachich civil and military 
governor of Hungary, vesting in him an expressly -unlimited 
despotism, and giving him 'power of life and death. Such an act, 
even from the legitimately-crowned king of Hungary, was not 
merely in all parts null and void, but was equivalent ipso facto 
to an abdication, since it was a rescinding of that constitution 
which made him king : yet the Hungarians did not, even so, 
declare the crown forfeited ; they merely prepared to resist the 
illegality. 

The war which followed is in itself a history. The barbarous 
burnings, slaughterings, and tortures inflicted by the Serbs were 



46 HUNGARY. 

presently backed up by similar ferocities of the Wallacks in 
Transylvania, stirred up by Austrian officers. Yet the devoted 
self-sacrifice of Hungary triumphed. In March, 1849, seven great 
victories were won by them in the open field against the trained 
armies and the most experienced generals of Austria. In April 
the host of 150,000 men which had invaded the country was 
everywhere in rapid retreat, shattered and disorganized. 

King Ferdinand was an imbecile, little removed from an 
idiot ; but he was morally too good for the convenience of the 
dynasty. He had refused in November to sign the commis- 
sions for invading Hungary, because such an act was a breach 
of his Coronation Oath. — He had in consequence been dethroned 
by a secret cabal, his abdication having been extorted from him 
by his family and some of the cabinet. The same conspirators 
placed on the throne his young nephew Erancis Joseph, a pupil 
of the Jesuits, who being only 18 years old, and having taken 
no Coronation Oath, would be a pliant tool of the " camarilla/' 
or secret cabinet. Moreover the Czar Nicholas had been impor- 
tuned to give aid in Transylvania, if requisite ; and in prepara- 
tion for this, he violated the neutrality of Turkey by invading 
Moldavia and Wallachia in November and December, 1848. 
Soon after, when Bern gained successes in Transylvania, the 
Eussians entered with 20,000 men; all of whom were shortly 
driven out again. The Austrian cabinet pretended to the 
European powers that the Eussians had not come at their invita- 
tion, but at the request of the Saxon towns of Transylvania, to 
save them from Bern's " atrocities," and not with any political 
object, but solely " in the cause of humanity." This pretence 
was admitted so courteously * by France and England, that 
Eussia perfectly discerned she would meet no impediment from 
either power. 

Early in April it was notorious that the Eussian armies were 
on their march, at the avowed invitation of the Hapsburgs. 
The Hungarian nation, having already victoriously earned its 
independence, proclaimed that House to have forfeited the crown, 
and made Kossuth governor during the continuance of the 
struggle. Even with the aid of Serbs and Croats and the entire 
disposable force of Eussia, Austria could not have been saved 
without the treachery of the Hungarian general Gorgey, who 
might have dictated peace in Yienna before the Eussians could 
have time to enter. But perfidy has triumphed. The House of 

* The Russian armies had occupied the Turkish provinces before the 
Saxon towns had ever heard the name of Bern, and a month before Kossuth 
sent him on his mission into Transylvania. 



CROATS AND SERBS. 47 

Austria has consummated the darling object of her ambition, — 
to annihilate the laws and liberty of Hungary. Nobody now 
knows what is law there. If a man is arrested in his bed and 
carried to prison by night, it is a political offence in his wife to 
tell next day that he has been so treated. Eights of property, 
rights of law, rights of religion, rights of speech, are all gone : 
the taxgatherer, the hangman, and the soldier domineer over the 
nation which in 1809 resisted the enticing of Napoleon I. to 
forsake their unworthy king. 



XIII.— CEOATS AND SEBBS. 

The reader may be at a loss to imagine, by what ingenuity 
the Austrian cabinet induced the Croats and Serbs to act so fierce 
and dreadful a part against Hungary. These races have been 
purposely kept in barbarism by Austria, in order to furnish her 
with an unlimited supply of soldiers, who are pressed into her 
armies by conscription ; and along what is called " the military 
frontier " were deprived of all the liberties of Hungary. This 
illegality was one of the standing grievances perpetually com- 
plained of by the Diet: yet the Austrian officers and agents 
had so long laid the blame of every evil on the " tyranny of the 
proud Magyars," that the ignorant people believed it. The 
Serbs are of the Greek Church, and have been protected by the 
Hungarian Diet from the persecutions of Catholic Austria ; yet 
a Serbian patriarch, from hostility of religion and race, proved 
a supple tool to the Hapsburgs in stirring up the fierce and wild 
people to deeds of blood and plunder. 

But it was necessary also to act on their political ambition. 
Jellachich, as we have said, at the mission of the Austrian ca- 
binet preached " Liberty, Fraternity, Equality," in Croatia, 
promising to the silly Croats that they, instead of " the proud 
Magyars," should be the dominant race in Hungary, — and this, 
at a moment when the Diet had just extorted Ferdinand's assent 
to laws which put all races on a perfect* equality. Similar 

* The use of the Magyar language in the Hungarian Diet was no viola- 
tion of equality; for some one language was necessary to be selected. In 
former days it was Latin, which, being a dead language, was much harder 
to acquire than the Magyar ; and was sustained by the Austrians merely 
because it impeded eloquence and persuasion, and stopped all reform. The 
Croats did not object to the use of Magyar in the Central Diet; but when 



48 THE STADION CONSTITUTION. 

absurdities deceived the Serbs. Instead of being subjected to 
the Diet of Hungary, they were to be a nation of themselves, 
in direct communication with the great Emperor at Yienna, and 
were to be free from the dishonour of waiting on the good plea- 
sure of a Hungarian ministry. In the firm belief that Austria 
was eager to strengthen their nationality and their local privi- 
leges, and exalt them above the Magyars, these rude nations 
entered upon their fratricidal missions, — the Serbs ferociously, 
the Croats stupidly. Civil Croatia has many educated classes, 
and the Croatian provincial Assembly well understood the true 
state of things. Jellachich could do nothing with it, till he had 
reconstituted it by violence ; his partizans were the young re- 
publicans, or the uneducated boors. The Serbs are a more ener- 
getic race, but more entirely barbarous. 

No sooner was the war ended, than both nations discovered 
that they had been made cats-paws. The exaltation promised 
them by Austria proved to be community of depression : every 
particle of freedom which they previously enjoyed has been 
taken away, and at last they understand that the Magyars were 
their friends and protectors. This is a lesson which will not be 
lost upon them at the next commotion. 



XIV.— THE STADION CONSTITUTION. 

The Bohemians have been similarly deluded. By the machi- 
nations of the Austrian cabinet they also were seduced into the 
stupid idea, that the Hapsburgs were willing to establish a con- 
stitutional rule, in which the Sclavonic element would prevail. 
By playing on this Bohemian vanity, the cabinet controlled the 
votes of the Viennese Parliament, in, August and September, 
1848, and prevented it from espousing the cause of Hungary 
against the treacherous Austrian ministers, or even receiving a 
communication from the Hungarian Diet which appealed to it as 
mediator. The Bohemians were amused by the promise of a 

Latin was laid aside, they wished to use the Croatian, and not the Magyar, 
in their own province ; and this, after long debates, was finally conceded to 
them by the Diet. It had previously been refused to them by the Crown. 

Englishmen do not think they are oppressive to Wales, in claiming that 
English, and not Welsh, shall be talked in the London Parliament. That 
German and English journalists make it a great sin in the Magyars, to have 
" oppressed the Croatian language," testifies how little argument that side 
has. 



AUSTRIAN ITALY. 49 

new and comprehensive constitution, which would fuse all Hun- 
gary into the Austrian Empire, and give an enormous prepon- 
derance to the Sclavonic races ; among which the Bohemian, as 
the most highly educated, would forsooth be dominant. 

This constitution was given to the world, — on paper, in the 
opening of March, 1849, having been signed by the young Em- 
peror after the battle of Kapolna (Feb.), which was lost by 
Gorgey's disobedience, and was accepted as the final blow to 
Magyar liberty. This paper-constitution is known by the name 
of Count Stadion, then Austrian Home Secretary. It provided a 
Parliament at Yienna, in which Italians, Austrians, Bohemians, 
Galicians, Magyars, Croats, Serbs, Wallacks, &c, &c, should sit 
together. The Sclavonians were told that they would have a 
clear majority in it, and the Magyars were assured that it was a 
far better constitution than the old one of which they were so 
absurdly enamoured. All municipalities were abolished, and 
bureaucracy made universal ; so that Hungary would be governed 
by German paid officials. 

This absurd and arbitrary scheme, commencing with the 
avowal " Hungary exists no longer,' ' roused those Magyars who 
previously had been lukewarm, — the ultra-tories of Hungary : 
but it prolonged the delusion of the Bohemians, who indeed 
well deserved to be cheated. This constitution did its work, in 
keeping the Bohemians firm to Austria until the Austro-Eussian 
armies had annihilated the liberty of Hungary. Nothing more 
was said of the constitution for near two years ; and then, — 
the young Emperor proclaimed its abolition ! 

Thu3 Austria cheats her foolish tools equally with her legal 
and loyal subjects, and proclaims to all Europe that a weapon 
of her rule is low trickery as well as fierce perfidy. The bom- 
bardment of Prague had been forgiven by the Bohemians, in 
their eagerness for Sclavonic supremacy. It remains to be seen 
what new bait for their credulity the craft of the Hapsburgs will 
invent. 



XV.— AUSTRIAN ITALY. 

In the year 1508, Maximilian I., in the infamous league 
of Cambuay, agreed to divide the territories of Venice, his 
ally, with his enemy Louis XII. of France. The Pope and the 
King of Naples took their share in the spoil. By this measure 
the House of Austria got possession of Dalmatia. 

D 



50 AUSTRIAN ITALY. 

The Milanese territory fell into the grasp of Charles of Ghent, 
— in the era at which Italy was placarded to all Europe as the 
prize of the strongest, — and it continued with the Spanish 
Hapsburgs until their race was superseded by the Bourbons on 
the throne of Spain. After the war of the Spanish succession, 
the great powers decided (a.d. 1713) that Austria must have 
the Milanese. She has kept it for her own convenience ever 
since. 

In the French republican war, the Austrian and the French 
armies trespassed at pleasure on the neutral territory of Venice, 
and plundered it alternately. In 1797 Bonaparte made with 
Austria the league of Campo Formio, by which Austria ceded 
to «France both Belgium and the Milanese, and received in com- 
pensation — half the possessions of Venice, a power whose neu- 
trality they had forcibly compromised. Environed by their joint 
forces, Venice could not resist. The Austrians, on entering, 
banished all persons known for patriotism and spirit, as if they 
had been rebels against a legitimate Government. In the close 
of 1805, they were forced to yield to Bonaparte both Venetia 
and Dalmatia : nevertheless, on the fall of Bonaparte, when the 
French troops had been expelled by the active exertions of the 
Italians, Austria marched-in her armies and occupied these 
territories as her inalienable right. 

Now for the first time, as far as we are aware, she assumed 
constitutional pretences towards Italy. It was indeed the re- 
newed age of fictitious constitutionalism. England was at the 
height of her reputation. Her inexhaustible resources, the un- 
changeableness of her policy, the safety and grandeur of her 
Crown, seemed ail to be linked with her parliamentary constitu- 
tion. By promising a renewal of the ancient national rights, 
modified only by new necessities, the German princes had re- 
animated their people. Sicily still retained her old, but reformed, 
Parliament : similar institutions were promised to Naples and 
Piedmont, and Austria felt the need of hypocrisy in the Lom- 
bardo-Venetian kingdom. In effect, England did give to France 
under the restored Bourbons a parliamentary Government, and 
Alexander guaranteed a highly-liberal constitution to the king- 
dom of Poland ; which made it decorous for us to accept and 
sign the Treaty of Vienna. At that crisis, the voice of England, 
if it had been raised against the treachery of the kings, would 
have armed all Germany, Poland, and Italy. To win our con- 
sent was essential to Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and it proved 
very easy. 

Austria at this time engaged to govern Lombardy and Venetia 



AUSTRIAN ITALY. 51 

as Italian nationalities constitutionally united to her crown, and 
drew up into schedule, as a sort of Charter, the constitution 
which was to be established. The army was to be strictly na- 
tional, all the officers as well as privates being Italians, except 
a few of the chief generals. The entire of the civil service also 
were to be Italians, except the viceroys and a few eminent offi- 
cials. The National Universities were to be under Italian Pro- 
fessors. There were to be Eepresentative Assemblies with 
freedom of speech, and the right of receiving petitions against 
any malversations of the Executive. Freedom of the press was 
guaranteed under fixed legal regulations. In short, it was pro- 
claimed, that the National Independence, which had been op- 
pressed by Napoleon, was now to be recovered. 

Besides all this, the Austrian dynasty won for itself at that 
crisis the active support of the nobility of Lombardy, by pro- 
mising to them definite privileges which might not be secured, 
if, by heading a purely republican movement, they were to expel 
the Austrians. The English plenipotentiary was easily amused 
by verbal promises, and possibly only wanted an excuse for 
gratifying the imperial friends who showered on him presents of 
diamonds. 

But no sooner was Austria in full possession, than the Italians 
discovered that every single promise was a trick and a falsehood. 
The executive Government indeed was for five or six years mild. 
The press and speech were practically free and many personal 
favours were shown to individual nobles ; but not one of the 
institutions guaranteed to them was established. Like the "Sta- 
dion Constitution," they were never intended to exist, except on 
paper. The nobility were the first to be discontented, — as uni- 
formly happens with those whom Austria makes her tools ; and 
in 1820, when constitutional revolt broke out in Naples and 
Sicily, the Italian patricians of the north began to plot similar 
movements. In 1821 was the arrest of Silvio Pellico, Confalo- 
nieri, and other noblemen ; and thenceforward the rule of Austria 
has been one of undisguised military violence. 

The Italian movements for freedom, during 1846 and 1847, 
under the auspices of Pope Pius IX., reached Lombardy as well 
as Naples, Sicily, Tuscany, and Sardinia. The people of Milan 
endeavoured to coerce the Government into liberal measures by 
the most inoffensive of all forms of battle, — by abstaining from 
tobacco, snuff, and the lottery, which brought revenue into the 
imperial coffers. Marshal Radetsky, the Austrian commander, 
avowed the doctrine that " three days of bloodshed yield thirty 
years of peace," and in order to infuriate ' the soldiery, a hand- 



52 AUSTRIAN ITALY. 

bill full of insults and threats against them was concocted and 
printed by the police, which purported to be from the Milanese. 
On the 3rd of January, cigars and brandy were abundantly given 
to the soldiers, who at last in the evening, when sufficiently 
drunk, were sent out into the streets with drawn swords, and at- 
tacked whomever they met. Sixty-one persons were carried off, 
severely or mortally wounded, to the hospitals ; the police having 
previously given orders to prepare carriages and beds. Some of 
the sufferers, who recovered, were doomed to inprisonment as 
malefactors, — probably because they would otherwise have been 
thenceforward dangerous enemies. The Marquess D'Azeglio, 
since prime minister of Sardinia, adds : " I at first believed it to 
be a calumny, — until I was forced to admit the fact, — that the 
wounds of the prisoners remained undressed ; in consequence of 
which, two of them died of gangrene, and the rest underwent 
extreme danger." 

Five days afterwards, another military outrage was committed 
in Pavia, and others in other garrisons ; this being, it seems, the 
Austrian mode of quelling the spirit of insurrection. But natu- 
rally, when the French revolution came in February, the result 
was, an uprising in Lombardy. Vienna was simultaneously re- 
volutionized. Eadetsky, who had been beaten out of Milan, 
received orders from Vienna to make peace. He disobeyed 
orders, rightly judging that the royal House would thank him for 
opposing a ministry which they had unwillingly accepted. Yet 
even so late as July, the Hapsburgs kept up their renewed pre- 
texts of constitutionalism and nationality. On the 22nd of that 
month, the Archduke John opened the assembly at Vienna in the 
name of the Emperor, with a speech breathing amity and good- 
will towards all parts of the Empire, and said of Italy in per- 
ticular :* "The war in Italy is not directed against the liberties 
of the people of that country. Its real object is, to maintain the 
honour of the Austrian arms in presence of the Italian Powers, 
at the same time recognizing their nationality." The result 
shows, that this, as on every other occasion, was a mere cheat 
and a blind, intended at the moment to win over a party among 
the Italians, as also among Hungarians and Bohemians, — to 

* The Hungarian Diet, and Kossuth personally, have been reproached by 
opposite parties on opposite grounds, in the matter of the Hungarian levies 
against Italy. Lord Ponsonby, and our official underlings and journals, 
attack the Hungarians for not giving troops against Italy ; Liberals (includ- 
ing even Mr. Walter Kelly) have attacked them for giving troops. These 
opposite accusations may surely neutralize one another. The real facts are 
too complicated to be accurately stated in the compass of a note. 



AUSTRIAN ITALY. 53 

satisfy the constitutional aspirations still dominant in Vienna, 
and to separate England from sympathy with the Sardinian arms. 
Possibly the Archduke John was personally sincere; but in such 
a dynasty, the good intentions of one prince are powerless. — To 
tell the horrors that Austria has since perpetrated, is here im- 
possible and needless. But her first act on entering Milan is a 
comment on her respect for Italian nationality. An edict was 
issued that all the men found iu Milan between 18 and 40 years, 
after 8 o'clock in the evening, should be immediately enrolled 
in the Croat regiments, and sent across the mountains. Less 
than 12 hours was allowed for those who preferred exile and 
destitution. After this we cannot wonder that the Italian exiles 
are counted by tens of thousands. 

All diplomacy is false and unjust, which pretends that the 
Austrian dynasty is a legitimate Government in Lombardy. A 
power, which dates its possession of a country from a century 
back without any growth of loyal sentiment ; — which in the last 
38 years has made itself more and more hated by every class ; a 
power which has falsified every solemn and public declaration, 
and stands only by overwhelming armies of foreign soldiery, — 
which affects moral sanctions no longer and believes in no alle- 
giance, — is simply at tear with the nation, and is in military 
occupation of its territory. Foreign statesmanship, which dis- 
guises this fact and bestows names of moral dignity on military 
oppression, tends to accumulate hatred against all royal persons 
as mutual supporters of one another without any regard to moral 
right or wrong. 

When a nation is crushed by foreign armies, as northern Italy 
now by Austria, any third power strong enough to interfere in 
favour of the oppressed needs no other moral justification than 
to point to the bare state of the facts. But if its own diplomacy 
has disguised those facts, it becomes exceedingly hard for it so 
to act as justice, humanity, and farsighted wisdom require. The 
strength of despots is in diplomacy, through which they paralyze 
the support of right by its only possible guardians. Since the days 
of Demosthenes and of Philip of Macedon, it has been notorious 
to all educated men, that the despot, who communicates his 
counsels to none, who is master of the whole resources of his 
nation, who pursues his plans undeviatingly but secretly, — has 
infinite advantages over free States both in negotiation and in 
the first outbreak of war. The only means of resisting him, is 
by rallying popular enthusiasm. But this is made difficult or 
impossible by free States, when they are so senseless as to allow 
any communications with him to be secret. 

d 2 



54 



XVI.— SICILY. 

A few words on Sicily are here appropriate, though that 
country has long ceased to be an Austrian possession. Its 
calamities nevertheless recommenced from a marriage of its king 
into the House of Austria. 

After the war of the Spanish succession, the moral dignity of 
the Sicilians was severely wounded by the mode in which they 
were handed from Spain to Savoy and from Savoy to Austria at 
the pleasure of the great powers : and in 1734, when the Bour- 
bon Philip Y. of Spain reconquered Naples, the Sicilians aided 
him to expel the Austrians from Sicily also. His son, Don 
Carlos, was received gladly as king of Naples and of Sicily, — 
two crowns, with two nationalities, — and with him begins the 
constitutional reign of the Bourbons over "the two Sicilies," as 
the kingdoms were called. Sicily had retained all her ancient 
institutions, which date as far back as those of England ; and 
from 1734 till nearly the end of the century she advanced in 
slow but steady improvement and general prosperity. The fatal 
change came, when her king Ferdinand married Caroline of 
Austria, and by the influence of the Emperor "Francis com- 
menced attacks on the Constitution. It was saved, first, by the 
vigour of the Sicilians, and secondly, by the arms of England, 
w r ho, after the marriage of Napoleon with Maria Louisa of 
Austria, discerned that the King of Sicily was become a mere 
tool of France. We therefore aided the nation against the King 
of Sicily ; and after many months' negotiation, the King in 1812 
took solemn oath to certain reforms and a new charter adapted 
to strengthen the public liberties. When Ave withdrew 7 from the 
island on the fall of Napoleon, our ambassador issued a pro- 
clamation that England was the ally and friend of the Sicilian 
nation, and the protectress and supporter of the recent reform. 
Nevertheless, immediately after the Congress of Vienna, in con- 
sequence of a secret treaty between Austria and Naples, the 
King overthrew the constitution and reigned despotically. Eng- 
land did not even protest! In 1820 Sicily rose against her 
usurping King ; so did Naples ; and constitutional royalty was 
re-established. But Austria, in fulfilment of the secret treaty, 
marched her armies in, and overthrew the liberty of both the 
Sicilies. Again England neither interfered, nor protested, nor 
lessened her demonstrations of friendship to either power. 



55 



XVII.— WHAT IS ALL THIS TO ENGLAND? 

In answer to the question, What is all this to us ? we may 
consider what England has done in the matter, — what she might 
have done, — how she is already affected, — and what threatens 
her in the future. But lest these topics make a volume in them- 
selves, we must be extremely concise. 

1. We have done much to establish the power of Austria, 
without once taking or asking any guarantee that the power 
should be well used : we therefore are not unentangled in her 
guilt. We played a principal part in winning for Austria, the 
battle of Blenheim, — which enabled her to recover her position 
in Hungary, — and soon after, in winning the battle of Ra- 
milies ; without which she could not have conquered the Mila- 
nese. We were mediators between her and Hungary in the 
treaty of Satmar, a.d. 1712, which reconciled Hungary to her 
crown, and guaranteed the Hungarian constitution. We were 
ardent allies to Maria Theresa, when the formidable conspiracy 
was made to despoil her of her crowns. In those wars our 
Government contracted a great debt, for the sake of Austria, on 
w T hich our nation has ever since been paying yearly interest. In 
the great war against Erance, we lent to Austria seventeen millions 
sterling, not a shilling of which has been repaid. If we dealt 
with her as unceremoniously as with Lahore or Birmah, we 
might take possession of Lombardy and Venice in order to repay 
ourselves. We became parties to the treaty of Vienna, seduced 
(willingly or unwillingly) by fair words which promised con- 
stitutions. We thus gave our influence (at that moment im- 
mense) to establish Austria in Venice and in another slice of 
Poland, — territories lawlessly seized during the Erench war, 
without any shadow of historical right. It avails not to say 
that we were not able to expel any of the invaders from Italy or 
Poland at that moment : there was nothing to force our pleni- 
potentiary to sign the treaty. By signing it we gave our assent 
to a worse despotism than Napoleon's, and, through the devo- 
tion of our statesmen to routine, we have disabled ourselves to 
this day for supporting European liberty and law. 

2. "What might England have done?" Many people seem 
to fancy that we were powerless ! — Not to run too far back, let 
us confine the question to the last five years. It is then safe to 
reply: 

a. Our ministry might have published in the spring of 1848 
the despatches of Mr. Blackwell, our envoy at Presburg ; which 
iu fact did not come to light till months after the fall of 



56 . WHAT IS ALL THIS TO ENGLAND? 

Hungary, when elicited from the ministry by a motion in Par- 
liament. — If they had been given to the public as soon as re- 
ceived, the English nation would have understood the cause of 
Hungary and the treacheries of Austria a full year earlier. If 
our foreign minister had, in his place in Parliament, expounded 
to us the happy event, that in the East of Europe a new Eng- 
land had arisen, — a free but royalist nation, warmly loving the 
example and the very name of England, — a nation which (in the 
words of the Archduke Charles) " sought for reform only by 
legal and constitutional means," — so that while we looked with 
terrible interest on France, we were able to regard Hungary with 
cordial and joyful sympathy ; — our aristocracy would have been 
put into a totally different temper of mind, our journalists would 
never have misled the public, Hungary would have rallied to 
England, and Austrian ministers might have been arrested in 
their headlong career before the fatal months of September and 
October. 

b. When the news arrived in October, 1848, that a royal re- 
script had arbitrarily annihilated the whole constitution of Hun- 
gary, which had been settled by our mediation at the peace of 
Satmar, and that a schism had reopened between Hungary and the 
Austrian crown ; we might have sent a special envoy to the Hun- 
garian Diet, with the avowed object of endeavouring to readjust 
the broken treaty. The moral weight of this would possibly 
have constrained the wicked members of the Austrian cabinet 
to resign ; for it would have been at once felt impossible to 
disguise their guilt from all Europe. The most respectable 
man among tbem, Count Stadion, left the ministry rather than 
consent to call in the Russians; and went mad irrecoverably, 
when he saw Austria thus cast beneath the feet of the Czar. 
Who shall say that our moral support of Hungary might not 
have made Stadion prime minister instead of Schwarzenberg ? 

c. When it farther was announced that F.erdinand had abdicated 
in favour of his nephew, but that the Hungarians suspected 
fraud, and in any case held his deed to be invalid in law, (since 
he had no power to alter the succession to the crown, or give 
away the rights of his own possible children,) — we might have 
directed our ambassador to suspend his relations w r ith the cabi- 
net of Vienna, not as renouncing amity with Austria, but as 
denoting our uncertainty what, or where, Austria was. If Fer- 
dinand's act was valid in Austria and invalid in Hungary, this 
was a voluntary dissolution of the union of the crowns. And if 
we found an opinion to prevail, that Ferdinand was removed 
because he would not violate his Coronation Oath, we might 



WHAT IS ALL THIS TO ENGLAND? . 57 

have protested in the face of all Europe against an affair so 
damaging to the moral influences of all royalty. At any rate 
we knew certainly that young Francis Joseph, if admissible to 
the royal dignity, could not legally exercise it in Hungary until 
legitimately crowned. And since Hungary was the only* great 
constitutional royalty remaining, we had every reason of interest, 
sympathy, and honour to induce us to acknowledge provisionally 
her separate independence as a nation legitimately struggling 
for hereditary rights. — Had we done this, we might still have 
continued our attempts to effect a reconciliation, and have con- 
ceded to the Hungarians the same public traffic with us as was 
lawful to the Austrians. Our example would have been eagerly 
followed by the United States, and very probably by General 
Cavaignac ; or even by his successor, — who in the early period 
of his career would not have wished to seem less attached to 
public liberties than aristocratic England. In all probability 
this would have forced the Austrians to peace ; but if not, it 
would have insured victory to the Hungarians. 

Instead of this, our minister did nothing until August, 1849, 
and then wrote a meek letter, offering to Austria to mediate, 
when the Eussian forces were already on the Theiss ! He simply 
received an exceedingly insulting reply. 

d. We might have protested against Eussia invading the Da- 
nubian provinces of Turkey in November and December, 1848, to 
the sore displeasure of the Sultan. If, besides this, we had sent 
an ambassador to acknowledge the Hungarian Diet, it is highly 
doubtful whether the Eussians would have ventured even on 
their first entrance of Transylvania, or whether the Sultan would 
have let them cross his frontier. 

e. After Hungary had triumphantly beaten Austrians and Eus- 
sians out, and had proclaimed the perfidious dynasty to have 
forfeited the crown for ever, we might have recognized Hun- 
gary as alike de facto and de jure independent ; and have warned 
the Czar that we should regard a new invasion of Hungary as 
a breach of the law of nations, to which we could not be in- 
different. The United States would have joined us in this, and 
Eussia would not have interfered the second time. 

/. When Kossuth in April, 1 849, wrote to ask the English Go- 
vernment to give a dynasty to Hungary, we might have accepted 
his ambassador, and at least have entered into negotiations. 

* Next in importance, and nearer to us in claims, was Sicily. Each is 
now destroyed, with its ancient nobility, and its ancient constitution. No 
old constitution survives in Europe, similar to that of England ! Will either 
Whigs or Tories tell us, that such a result strengthens the throne of Victoria, 
or the Peerage of England \ 



58 WHAT IS ALL THIS TO ENGLAND? 

Instead of this, our ministry refused to listen, and replied — (the 
words are written in the blue book) — that England knows no- 
thing of Hungary except as "part of the Austrian Empire"! 
Of course this meant, as "attached to the Austrian Crown;" 
for the name Empire is very recent, and never has included Hun- 
gary. If our well-read and highly-experienced ministers can 
possibly have been ignorant either of the peace of Satmar or 
of the pacification by Leopold II., yet they were assuredly 
aware that the Treaty of Vienna did not bargain away Hungary 
to the crown of Austria and pledge the British Government to 
such a union. It barely recognized an existing fact of noto- 
rious Hungarian law, — namely, that the emperor of Austria was 
also legitimate king of Hungary : which left it open to us to 
inquire, whether the same state of facts still continues. But we 
resolved not to entertain the question, and, apparently, still 
so resolve. 

g. So much we all know might have been done, if there had 
been a will. Ministers of State are farther aware, whether or not 
the dread of our supporting Sardinia and Yenice with active force, 
and occupying the port of Fiume for the Hungarian Diet, might 
not have been plied so judiciously on the Austrian cabinet early 
in 1849 as to constrain them to make peace and send the Bus- 
sian armies home. On such topics private men are not al- 
lowed to speak too confidently, yet we cannot help having our 
strong opinions. At any rate, never will unbiassed history be- 
lieve, lhat in 1848, when the Austrian dynasty was on the brink 
of destruction, it was not in the power of Great Britain to con- 
trol the male and female conspirators who wielded the name of 
the Austrian Empire to the ruin of its independence. Never 
shall we be believed to have wished so well to liberty, as to the 
name and shadow of Hapsburg. Never will it be possible to 
acquit our tremblingly-conservative Government of having so 
dreaded the fall of an old injustice, and the possible rise of a 
just novelty, as to prefer to see despotism triumph by the final 
wreck of royal honour and loyal love, with the undisputed as- 
cendency of the Czar of Siberia on the banks of the Shine and 
the frontier of Piedmont. 

3. Now from all these dreadful events what results are come 
upon England ? 

First, a degradation of the idea of Royalty. — The ancient* 
conception of a king was noble and glorious, as the freely-ac- 

* The mutuality of the bond between King and People was, in old days, 
expressed by the word Liege. He was their " liege-lord," they were his 
■' liege-men." Liege is said to be related to League, as Bound is to Bond. 
But the modern word, " Subjects," assimilates liege-men to conquered slaves. 



WHAT IS ALL THIS TO ENGLAND? 59 

cepted guardian of Law, the sacred embodiment of Eight, the 
symbol and means of the Nation's Unity, its representative to 
the foreigner, and its central object of honour. Towards a king 
who is conceived to fulfil this idea, all Patriotism rallies, and 
Loyalty (or love of Law) becomes identified with devotion to the 
royal person and dynasty. But now, our official rulers recognize 
as kings and emperors, co-ordinate to our own sovereign, those 
who notoriously have no moral sanction whatever, — violent in- 
vaders, hated oppressors, perfidious usurpers. It cannot be too 
much pondered by English royalists, that he who exalts robbers 
into princes degrades princes into robbers. If our aristocracy, 
during coming events, play into the hands of despotism, they 
may open a gulf between the lovers of freedom in England and 
the devotees of false royalty, which will swallow up the throne 
of Queen Victoria's children. 

Next, we have seen foreign conspiracy to overthrow lawful 
constitutions, adopted into European policy as a fixed principle. 
The precedent of a king, by his own forces, destroying the law 
which he is appointed to uphold, is sufficiently dreadful and 
alarming to all free nations. But since our confirmation of the 
later partitions of Poland in the Congress of Vienna, the un- 
holy Alliance has systematized its work. By combining to 
quench liberty, they have overthrown law and right in Sicily, in 
Naples, in Spain, in Cracow, in Eome, in Hungary, in Hesse 
Cassel, — we might add, in all Germany. — Who can deny, that 
the liberties of every constitutional State are hereby seriously 
brought into peril? Especially since, by the overthrow of 
Hungary, all Austria is now converted into a satrapy of Eussia. 

4. Does any one ask, what threatens us in the future ? 
Nothing is clearer. "We have to dread, first, Eussian and Aus- 
trian influence on the Stock Exchange, to make all our moneyed 
men prefer any or every subversion of right, though pregnant 
with final ruin to England, rather than a resistance which would 
lower the value of their stock by 2 per cent. We have next to 
fear the rage of the millions against moneyed men, and an enor- 
mous growth of doctrinaire Eepublicanism and Communism in 
various forms. We have to expect philosophical journalists ex- 
patiating on the advantages of dismembering the Ottoman do- 
minions, and materialist friends of peace swelling the despotic 
influence. If despotism prevails in Europe, we shall have to 
fight a singlehanded war against its combined force, or resign 
our liberties and our Protestantism : but if despotism is over- 
thrown in Europe, and we have not displayed genuine sympathy 
with freedom, we have to tremble lest it cause civil war in Ire- 



60 WHAT IS ALL THIS TO ENGLAND? 

land and in the Colonies, and rouse a strong republican feeling 
in England itself. Such are the dangers encompassing England 
from her unfaithfulness to law and liberty, especially in 1848 
and 1849. 

In those years it was not too late to save European freedom 
by mere diplomacy : now, to act by mere diplomacy is little else 
than treachery. If we desire to set up Constitutional Royalties, 
we must subdue the obstacles by arms, not by words. If by 
military and naval force we were to free Italy and Hungary, and 
make to those nations a present of liberty, they would, no doubt, 
accept it gladly in our English form. But unless we mean to 
go to this effort, we have no moral claim to dictate to the 
nations of the Continent what form their freedom, when they can 
gain it, shall assume. Unless it is to be won by our arms, it 
will now be necessarily republican ; hence, to feel hostility to 
republicanism is now to feel hostility to freedom and in fact, to 
side with the despots, whom all the while we disgust by our 
freedom of speech. If, after sitting still while the great his- 
torical Constitutions of Europe were lawlessly and perfidiously 
destroyed, we begin to fight a new diplomatic war for Constitu- 
tional Eoyalty, we shall, as hitherto, earn the hatred of Princes 
and of Nations alike, and encounter severe dangers, whichever 
of the two combatants is ultimately victorious. 



THE END. 



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